#is this based off what one of my PCs has developed into?

[commodorez]

I still believe the craziest form of computer program storage format from the 1980s is the cassette tape. Logical I get it but to store entire programs on little tape (that I only remember using to play music) is just crazy to me. Idk

Agreed, cassette tape for data storage was really clever. The concept had its heyday was the 1970s in a wide variety of encoding schemes for different computer platforms. It did persist into the 80s, mostly in Europe, while the US switched to floppy disks as soon as they were available for systems. The majority of my Ohio Scientific software is on cassette.

Talking with UK vs. US Commodore 64 users in particular will highlight the disparity in which storage mediums that were commonplace. I've got a few pieces of software on tape for mainly the VIC-20, but I rarely bother to use it, because it's slow and annoying. To be fair, Commodore's implementation of data storage on tape is pretty rock solid relative to the competition. It's considered more reliable than other company's but Chuck Peddle's implementation of the cassette routines are considered quite enigmatic to this day. He didn't document it super well, so CBM kept reusing his old code from the PET all the way through the end of the C128's development 7 years later because they didn't want to break any backward compatibility.

The big thing that really made alot of homebrewers and kit computer owners cozy up to the idea was the introduction of the Kansas City Standard from 1976. The idea of getting away from delicate and slow paper tape, and moving towards an inexpensive, portable, and more durable storage medium was quite enticing. Floppy disk drives and interfaces were expensive at the time, so something more accessible like off the shelf audio tapes made sense.

I've linked two places you can read about it from Byte Magazine's February 1976 issue below (check the attribution links).

You might recognize a familiar name present...

There are a few ways to encode binary data on tape designed to handle analog audio, but the KCS approach is to have 1's be 8 cycles of 2400Hz tone, and 0's be 4 cycles of 1200Hz tone. I say cycles, because while 300 baud is the initial specification, there is also a 1200 baud specification available, so the duration of marks vs spaces (another way of saying 1's and 0's), is variable based on that baud rate. Many S-100 computers implemented it, as do a few contemporary proprietary designs.

The big 3 microcomputers of 1977 that revolutionized the industry (Apple II, Commodore PET 2001, and Tandy TRS-80 Model I) each have their own cassette interface implementation. It kept costs down, and it was easy to implement, all things considered. The Apple II and TRS-80 use off-the-shelf cassette deck connections like many other machines, whereas the original variant of the PET had an integrated cassette. Commodore later used external cassette decks with a proprietary connector, whereas many other companies abandoned tape before too long. Hell, even the original IBM PC has a cassette port, not that anybody bothered to use that. Each one used a different encoding format to store their data, rather than KCS.

Here's a sample of what an OSI-formatted tape sounds like.

And here's a Commodore formatted tape, specifically one with VIC-20 programs on it.

I won't subject you to the whole program, or we'd be here all day. The initial single tone that starts the segment is called the "leader", I've truncated it for the sake of your ears, as well as recorded them kinda quietly. I don't have any other tape formats on hand to demonstrate, but I think you get the idea.

You can do alot better than storing programs on tape, but you can also do alot worse -- it beats having to type in a program every time from scratch.

#kansas city standard #cassette tape #commodore vic-20 #ohio scientific

[burr-ell]

Conflict, Communication, and Chemistry: A Laura and Marisha PC Appraisal

A couple of people have observed across all three main campaigns that Laura and Marisha consistently make characters that ultimately don't seem to fully understand each other for various reasons, and their characters' chemistry (or lack thereof) is an outgrowth of that. And until recently, I thought that was one of those things that I personally saw but not everyone else was obligated to view the same way—chemistry is often subjective, and it’s for that reason that I tend not to take seriously a lot of the common shipping-based arguments about chemistry.

But in the most recent 4-Sided Dive, Marisha, Laura, and Sam said this:

MARISHA: I have enjoyed…of course, like, delving into the relationship is always fun, but then relationship tension is also fun. LAURA: Yeah, I feel like you guys [points between Marisha and Sam] are really big on—you really like relationship conflict too. You guys talk about that a lot. SAM: Of course. Because I don’t have any in my real life. LAURA: I’m terrified of conflict. That translates to the game as well, I don’t like conflict. SAM: You don’t like conflict? Even in the game, in this dramatic storytelling game that we’ve made together? LAURA: No! I don’t like fighting! SAM: You just want everything to go fine? LAURA: Yes!

And I think that made things click into place for me. This is the reason why their characters have this through-line, because their approaches to conflict bleed through to their character choices. Laura's characters’ issues tend to be internal; they tend not to have prolonged fights with other characters, and their arcs are often person-vs-self stories about emotional walls and struggling with self-centeredness in some capacity. Marisha's characters, on the other hand, are upfront about their problems and are completely unafraid to go toe-to-toe with other party members, and their character development is often a product of a straightforward person-vs-person or person-vs-society story about overcoming their physical obstacles. And it’s part of why their current characters’ relationship has played out in a way that’s strange and off-kilter, because their interactions do not read to me like the players really understood this about each other before the public talk show discussion quoted above.

In Campaign 1, Vex and Keyleth’s relationship is conspicuous by its absence; even within their superficial commonalities, they are not particularly drawn to each other beyond circumstance. Vex is unquestionably the leader of Vox Machina insofar as they have one, and she does this by consistently finding a compromise—when the group is arguing about their best course of action in Whitestone or Westruun or Draconia or the Nine Hells, Vex is the one who mediates and strategizes their way out. She's very good at seeing all sides of an issue, threading the needle, and coming to a decision that keeps the group happy and together. The problem is that she tends to do this at the expense of her personal needs being met; she bottles up a lot of her emotions and issues and she struggles with letting people in, and has to work on not internalizing and holding grudges.

Keyleth, on the other hand, consistently takes stances and isn't afraid to be the moral compass of the party, like when she notices how dark everyone is becoming during the Briarwood arc and fights to correct it. She lets herself feel what she feels rather than pushing it away, which allows her to overcome the physical and mental challenges of her Aramente and affords her more emotional freedom and honesty. Sometimes, though, these traits work against her—she will argue a point and continue to belabor it until someone else steps in; she can be self-righteous due to her own naïveté; and her emotional openness can be poorly-timed and lead her into indecision and dithering. One of the few one-on-one conversations Keyleth and Vex have is after Vex dies and is brought back in the Sunken Tomb, and Vex is quickly exasperated at having to deal with Keyleth’s feelings when she’s the one who died and she’s just trying to piece together what happened.

Vex is often frustrated by Keyleth's hardline beliefs and feelings and has to compromise around them; Keyleth sees conflict in a much more literal way than the internalization and masking that Vex does, and as a result never really digs deeper into who Vex is as a person. By the end of the campaign, they call each other sisters, which I think is appropriate—they're two people who care about each other but have little in common, tied together by the single factor of Vax. Outside of that commonality, there's little reason for them to be especially close the way they are with other members of the party; if there was, they’d have been close at any point throughout the previous 114 episodes.

Beau and Jester form a stronger friendship in Campaign 2, but they seem to understand just enough about each other to get along well while not being able to truly see each other. Jester is cheerful and goofy by nature, but she also projects that particular image in order to make the people around her happy and keep them together. While she will speak her mind, she doesn’t tend to stand at one end or the other of the ideological and political spectrum of issues faced by the Nein and is simply happy to have an adventure and sow some chaos. Even when having difficulties with the Traveler, Jester is willing to work through it and find a solution that works for both of them in order to preserve the relationship.

Beau, meanwhile, approaches the world abrasively and aggressively and is a bit too prepared to burn bridges with people if she thinks they aren’t worth it. While she recognizes the nuances of the conflict between the Empire and the Dynasty, she’s ultimately loyal to the Cobalt Soul’s mission of using knowledge to fight corruption. She’s perfectly happy to butt heads with Caleb or Fjord or Molly if she thinks they’re in the wrong, and her cut-your-losses mentality puts her in conflict with how important the Traveler is to Jester.

This difference is thrown into especially sharp relief not only by how they deal with their respective fathers, but also the response they think the other should have. Jester wants to reconnect with the Gentleman and for him to repair his and Marion’s relationship, while Beau has fully written off Thoreau and has no interest in reconciling. Jester is upset at Beau’s suggestion that she just forget her dad and not put effort into someone who won’t do the same for her, while Beau is less than impressed with Jester’s suggestion that Thoreau really does care about her and it might be worth it to patch things up, and the upshot of it all is that the way everything plays out makes it clear that both of them have badly misread the other’s situation.

Beau, like Keyleth before her, doesn’t seem to understand that Jester is masking a lot of insecurities and wants someone to see her for who she is and not an idealized version of her; Jester actually stops confiding in Beau after Beau tells her she doesn’t need Artagan and that she’s the actual god. Jester, meanwhile, is unwilling to set aside her dreams and fantasies and is at her happiest when she can roam and adventure freely, something for which Beau would not set aside her responsibilities and beliefs in the mission of the Cobalt Soul. They’re still good friends, but going their separate ways is a benefit to both of them.

And now we have Imogen and Laudna, whose relationship felt lacking well before it became romantic. A lot of time and energy has been spent by multiple people trying to articulate exactly why that is, and there are many reasons—Laudna’s concept seems better-suited to a short form narrative and it took about 60 episodes for her character to stop feeling entirely superfluous; the relationship lacks any substantive conflict or disagreement and the supportiveness feels more like a mutual security blanket; they seem to have little in the way of an actual dynamic outside of melodramatic plot moments. But the relevant issue here is that Laudna is, for all intents and purposes, a yes-woman who supports whatever Imogen wants to do simply because Imogen wants it (a trait that notably does not carry over to anyone else in the party—she is completely unafraid to delve into negative emotions and traits with Ashton and Orym, both of whom are played by people Marisha has historically worked with to produce some of the best relationship dynamics on the show). If Imogen wants to run off and live in a cottage or join the Vanguard or commune with Predathos or not commune with Predathos, Laudna will uncritically encourage her no matter what, because per Marisha’s words on the Laudna playlist, “Laudna will protect and attack anyone who tries to fuck with her girl”. Part of Laudna’s core concept, baked in from the beginning, is the belief that Imogen “deserves the world”. Between these two players, the one who enjoys conflict is playing a character who will do everything in her power to shield and soothe the character being played by the one who hates conflict. The result feels less like a healthy supportive relationship and more like a recipe for enablement.

When episode 77 came out, I commented that for the first time I actually started to feel something—anything at all—about Imogen and Laudna, and it’s because I started to get a sense that there might be some real potential for tension and tragedy. And now—between Laudna imploring Imogen to move on from her if she dies, Marisha seeming to suggest at one point that Laudna may not have a future at all, Imogen admitting that she’s outright disgusted by Delilah, the disconnect between the players’ approaches to conflict, Imogen (and Laura, out of character) being shocked and horrified by Laudna absorbing the soul of the Willmaster, and Laudna now intentionally working with Delilah in order to protect Imogen—I’m starting to wonder if their relationship may indeed be on a collision course.

Now this could end in multiple interesting ways: Imogen could be driven away from Laudna, who is slowly consumed by Delilah; Laudna could choose to sacrifice herself to end Delilah for good and Imogen is forced to move on; Imogen and Laudna could Thelma and Louise their way off a cliff; or maybe someone just points out how unhealthy this all is and they start to be more honest and less codependent and their relationship improves after a lot of hard work. But something has to happen. 

Laura and Marisha have, multiple times now, been asked questions about Imogen and Laudna’s relationship that they have answered with varying degrees of “we never really talked about it”, sometimes referring to in-game conversations and sometimes not, and that is both unsurprising and a bad sign of things to come. I don’t know exactly how much out-of-game conversation happened between previous canon relationships that Laura and Marisha have played, but this one desperately needs it—because for three straight campaigns, all we’ve seen is every indication that these are two players who are uniquely ill-suited to play a romance the way either of them would want to.

#cr meta #critical role

[thankskenpenders]

I feel like a recent years have shown that fan reaction has influenced the way Sega handles Sonic in some ways. Frontiers for example in a lot of ways feels like a reaction to complain. So a lot of fans have had about mainline Sonic games.

With that said what do you think about Sega making a multi-character 3D action game Sonic and then slapping it on a platform that has some of the least amount of player reach despite being a mainline platform?

I would be very curious to know more about the development behind Dream Team for sure, but as far as I'm aware the game was more than likely made specifically for Apple Arcade from the very start with heavy involvement from Apple, rather than being a project Sega was shopping around that just so happened to end up as an Apple exclusive.

I have to assume that this game would not exist at all if it wasn't an Apple Arcade project. Hardlight is very much Sega's mobile game division first and foremost, so it's unlikely (if not impossible) that Sega would've had them working on a 3D Sonic platformer for consoles and PC when that's Sonic Team's job. And Apple Arcade's subscription revenue is basically the only home for mobile games that aren't chock full of ads, microtransactions, and wait timers these days. So while it could theoretically get ported elsewhere in the future, it's unlikely that Dream Team ever would've gotten made for any other platform.

Like, there are already two Sonic games on Apple Arcade. Sonic Racing (based off of TSR) was one of the earliest releases for the service and has always been heavily promoted as one of Apple Arcade's flagship games. Later they also did Sonic Dash+, a version of the existing endless runner game with the ads and microtransactions stripped out. I have to assume that these games have done well on Apple Arcade, and Apple simply looked at that and went "Hey, what if we got them to make us an ORIGINAL Sonic game?" Apple Arcade also appeals pretty heavily to parents who want their kids to have something to play on their iPads that isn't cram full of microtransactions, and Sonic remains extremely popular with kids.

But beyond that, why they landed on a full 3D platformer with SIX playable characters, some amount of story, and a new style of level design that takes some influence from skate parks? Who knows. Maybe some folks at Sega Hardlight were just dying to make something like that, and the Apple gig was their opportunity to make it happen after so many years being stuck working on glorified Skinner boxes. Or maybe Apple thought a 3D platformer would be good to diversify their portfolio. Again, I'd be very curious to learn more

(Also, honestly, as annoyed as I am that I have to play Dream Team on my iPad instead of my PC or a console, I do find the talking point that "no one will be able to play it" extremely silly. There are billions of iPhones, iPads, Mac computers, and to a lesser extent Apple TVs out there. Billions. With a B. Apple Arcade reportedly had over 100 million users last year. That's quadruple the number of subscribers Game Pass had, even though if you asked the average gamer they'd probably assume Game Pass was the more popular one! Exclusivity is always frustrating, and I sympathize with folks annoyed that they don't have any devices that can play it, but the fandom deciding that "only six people will be able to play this" is completely divorced from reality.)

#dustybins #ask #tkp asks

[bronx-bomber87]

Happy Friday all. Posting a day early. I'll be gone this weekend wanted to post this before left. I pre-wrote 3x05 as well. I return Monday night So all I'll have to do next day is edit and add gifs to stay on schedule for Tues :) We are onto the next ep of Tim’s growth. I love writing about this man and the psychology behind him. To watch him develop and grow is one of my favorites things to write about and watch really. Lucy being his good influence for that growth is perfection. This is a damn good ep. Let’s keep it rolling.

3x04 Sabotage

Grey has assigned Tim and Lucy to be Jackson’s backup with Stanton. Love this btw and it's a smart play. If Stanton gives him grief they’ll be there as witnesses. Grey has them assigned to the same sector as Jackson/Doug. They hear a pedestrian stop come over the radio by Stanton. Lucy tells Tim let’s go. Her anxiety rising up. Tim calmly replies not yet. If they do Doug will realize they’re following him. I love them getting to do this together. Tim with new clarity and focus on Stanton.

Beautiful thing is he can help keep Lucy even keel. Something he is very good at. He needs to be the level head for them both. Lucy’s emotions are going to get best of her. Because her base need is to protect Jackson first. Doug be damned. Tim wants to protect them both so he’s going to be the calmer more rational one during this. I love it. Exactly what both Lucy and Jackson need. Tim’s calm leadership and cool head on their side during all this.

(I can't believe this scene isn't gif'd btw it's so good. I did my quick ones with my phone/website.)Luckily it’s a clean stop and Jackson calls it in as Code 4 all clear. We pan back to them in their shop. Lucy telling Tim it isn’t fair Jackson has to deal with this. Tim agrees and says he can’t imagine what it’s like for him. To have to ride next to a guy who’s on the edge constantly. Ready to cross the line. Lucy makes a little joke and says she can...

I mean early Tim was exactly that. Not Doug obviously but on the edge of crossing the line a lot. A time bomb ready to explode at the smallest provocation. Very early in her career she had to rein in an emotionally damaged Tim. He was in the midst of his Isabel trauma and radioactive. I know he isn’t proud of those days especially now. That he knows how lucky he was Lucy was there to stand up to him. Right his ship. Knock some sense back into him. So he didn’t end up self destructing and taking her with him.

It’s why they’re so damn solid though. Those early episodes built what they have now. As rough as they were for them both. It bonded them in a way no one can touch or understand other than them really. Lucy proving she had the backbone. Not only that but to stand up to him and make the right call when he wasn’t able to. To be that positive light and good influence that has changed him into the man he is now. What I think really sets Tim off in this scene isn’t that as much. It's part of it but not the main factor. It’s her calling him her potential Doug.

It's triggering something deep down for him. Making him face what he did on day one. I think with the clarity he has now its a tough pill to swallow. The POV and ways he’s changed himself since then he’s embarrassed to think about that now. Ashamed of that moment. That he did that bad stop, used those men in a negative light and said his non PC words. I think looking back on that he is remorseful and feels shame that he did that. He hasn't really had to face that till now.

The feelings are flooding him and he doesn't know how to handle it. When you've changed like Tim has to look back on your darker moments isn't easy. He is having a visceral reaction to it and I don't blame him. Its normal to have that reaction. What's important is what he does after this scene. After the initial shock of having to re-face it.

Lucy telling him her honest thoughts about how she felt during it only makes that worse. As much as it hurts he needed to hear this to complete his growth. I think Lucy telling him it wasn’t a good stop, wasn’t a good experience for her or those men is hitting him hard. He feels exposed and that he’s let her down. Because he has grown so much it pains him to think about how he acted. To think in that moment he disappointed her. That didn't matter back then but it sure as hell does now and that absolutely kills him.

It goes back to his insecurity about how Lucy views him. No matter what this man says her opinion of him matters a great deal to him. So to bring up one of his most shameful moments feels like an attack on that insecurity. So what does he do? Lashes out. Become defensive. Tries to defend it because if he can find a modicum of logic in what he did it’ll lessen the damage. It'll minimize her thinking less of him during that stop. He is grasping as straws during that defense. Defaults a bit back to how he used to be. When he couldn't handle his emotions. When he was a live wire flailing about with no one around to ground him.

It's a deep rooted thing he innately goes back to. Like I said before they are deep groves in his brain. He can't handle the emotions coming at him right now so he shuts down. Lucy can see she has upset him deeply by bringing this up. The way he cuts off the convo, The pre frustrated tears in his eyes, and how stiff his body language has become. Tells her he won’t talk about this further. She has hit a nerve inside him and he needs time to recoup. I think Lucy regrets bringing it up a little. She never likes to be the source of upsetting him. It produces a lovely scene later but she knows she’s hurt him.

We catch our beautiful duo walking up to a call afterwards. Lucy wants to test out the waters with him. Asking if he’s still mad at her? Tim the master of deflection says ‘I’m not mad.’ Ok honey.....Lucy doesn’t buy that for a second. I mean look at his posture he’s as stiff as a board. Tells him as such cause she can’t stand him being mad. Especially if she’s the one who caused it.

Before they can talk any further they reach the woman who made the call. Talking about a porch pirate. Tim says they’re going to do some foot patrol. See if any of the neighbors have a camera they can tap into. As they walk away Lucy looks up at him willing him to talk to her. He breaks pretty easily. Tells her he’s not mad but he is upset. Lucy with a knowing wifey smile says ‘I knew it.’ He continues on with a reply she wasn't expecting. Telling her he's not upset with her but himself. *heart clutch*

Then we see the fruit of his arc the last couple episodes in the gif above. Letting her know she was right. That he had carelessly used those gardeners without thinking of his impact on them. He owns what he did and says he can’t undo what was done. But he can make sure it never happens again. Ugh this man. I’m so proud of him. I could cry. Not only seeing he was wrong but accepting it. Saying he’ll work towards never letting it happen again.

My damn heart. The growth in this man. S1 Tim would've held onto his anger all day. Would've been short with Lucy for most of their shift. Until she forced him to confront his anger. So much progress these two. It makes me so happy. I also need to commend the hell out of Lucy. Always having the backbone to say what needs to be said to him. No one could ever have the impact she has had on him. The positive influence she’s injected into his veins and life. Damn I love them.

Lucy is beaming when he is done speaking. You can see how proud she is of him. Telling him what progress he’s made. Let’s not forget the way she touches his arm. Says she’s proud of him when she does this. You don’t have to touch him Lucy hehe but seriously touch him more LOL Her little taps of love and affection for him. I adore them so much. He tries to down play how much relief this gives him. Sarcastic in his reply. ‘I’m thrilled....’ Lying Liar who Lies.

That man is biting back a smile when he says this. Can’t even keep eye contact with her for long. Because if he does he’ll break. She will see how much it actually means to him. That her opinion of him means so much more to him than she realizes. Lucy closes out the scene with heart eye city. Girl you are working put those away baha Lucy is practically levitating off the ground with how she is looking at him in that last gif. She truly could not be prouder of him and it shows. His moral compass leveling up and she is here for it.

Their moment is broken up by them seeing a dog steal food delivery off a porch. It looks like they have found their porch pirate and he is furry haha This is such a cute and comical moment in the middle of an intense episode. Lucy is baffled by what they’re witnessing. She cracks me up with her reaction. The way they watch the dog take off in-sync is adorable. They decide to follow the dog to see where it leads them. Naturally right back to its owner. He’s all excited and happy till Tim and Lucy show up. LMAO

Tim has a funny opening line when they reach the owner. Their reactions are so funny after the guy says 'Bad dog' HA. It was some much needed levity after their tense morning. The way they look at each other at the end. Be still my heart. They always say so much with just a look. I can not with them haha Seriously look at them could they be any cuter? Mirroring body posture and the precious looks. God I love them. Getting cute aggression over here.

They head to lunch after dealing with their doggy criminal heh. Stanton comes up to Tim while he waits in line. I LOVE Tim in this scene. Getting protective over Jackson and wanting to clock Doug. Mmm gimme. Tim tries to take a pot shot and see if it gets through. Tim thinks it does at first then Doug takes it the wrong way. Blaming Angela and not himself for Jackson's behavior. Classic narcissistic douche. Tim's body language says it all. Looks like he wants wipe the floor with Stanton's face so much. Me too love me too...

After lunch they’re having a little pow wow together. I love this scene. Both of them in alignment talking about Stanton. A united front against him as it should be. Lucy is venting to Tim about how unfair this is. How Stanton is getting away with murder. Just like earlier Tim is the steady eddy one for her. Trying to keep her calm with logic and what they’re faced with.

Lucy desperately wants a Tim Bradford sideways thinking solution to this. To have an out of the box thought from him to save Jackson from Doug. Seeing how flawed the system is driving her nuts. She is desperate to get Jackson out of this situation. Sadly there is no sideways solution to this one as Tim states above. Just like with Nolan in 3x01 they have to play the game. Even when the game feels rigged af.

He’s solid in his reasoning as to why they need to. The same system that protected Nolan in 3x01 sadly also protects people like Stanton. It’s maddening and infuriating to think it could represent both. Tim is right is they don’t play this exactly right he gets away with murder. Becomes even worse than before because he beat the system. A cancer like that spreads and spreads quickly. Lucy is seeing what he is saying even if it annoys the crap out of her.

I just adore him coming to her side of thinking. He is viewing this in a whole light cause of her. Tim is able to keep her steady while they play the long game with Stanton. I love the way he listens to her towards the end of the scene. She has completely changed his outlook towards this and it shows. How intently he’s paying attention to her words and emotions. I love it sfm. Lucy is so defeated and you can tell Tim wants to do so much more than they currently are.

Tim decides they need to be doing more than they are. He grant's Lucy her wish for a sideways solution. He’s decided to take Lucy to meet Doug’s old rookie Owens. His previous rookie was a black man as mentioned by Doug earlier. Tim is hoping he has dirt on Doug. Something actionable they can use to strengthen their case. Tim warns Lucy to play this by the book. Not to tip their hand and get too protective of Jackson. Playing the game to get something solid. No accusations and no demands. Just info.

Tim has it handled at first....Doing code of silence. Having all three of them turning off their body cams. They do it Tim’s way for about two seconds LOL They’re able to get out of him that Doug is a hater. Lucy gets impatient though with the double speak. Says let’s just say what we mean. Do you thing Doug is a racist? Tim’s eyes nearly pop out of his skull. haha His ballsy wife just going for it. He tries to do damage control after that with this guy. Seeing if they can salvage anymore info.

Lucy has spooked him a bit and he’s starting to retract. So she comes at him hard since the politeness is gone. Asking if he’s ever seen him doing anything unlawful against minorities? If he’s ever seen him treat them unfairly. Owens gets defensive and says if he had he would’ve been breaking the rules by not reporting it. Tim says they’re not here for that they just want him to be real with them. He has been creating grief on their end.

Owens spooks more says Doug could make or break his career. He’s weeks away from Metro. Can’t throw it all away now. Lucy tries one more time and ask about all the people he’s hurting? He hesitates then says they’re good people but he doesn’t know them. That he can’t help them and takes off.

Lucy is bummed and says that was a bust… Tim actually sees something positive. Says he saw how conflicted he was. To give it time for him to come around. So proud of him for not jumping all over her for not following his play. That her aggressive tactic led to a result of some kind for them. How far we’ve come ❤️

Sadly their interaction with Owens backfires horribly. He warns Doug about what they’re doing. So he tests Jackson acts like he lost his body cam and is gonna beat the crap of of their suspect. Tells Jackson to watch the drugs and he doesn’t.... Tim and Lucy pull up and that’s when they find out Owens stabbed them in the back. The suspect is fine and Doug leads on he knows what they're doing.. It sucks. The look between Tim and Lucy is everything. He's got them beat at the moment.*sigh*

The final scene for Tim is SO good. I couldn't be prouder. I know Lucy would be as well. Also I'm a little hot under the collar watching him action. The way he goes to the mat for Jackson. It’s sexy af. How he comes at this guy. Get ‘em Tim! The turn around in him is unreal. Went from 'It is what it is. '' The system will never change.' To backing Jackson and standing up for what’s right. This scene reminds me of the story about the starfish on the beach and the little kid trying to save them all.

This little kid sees a beach full of dying starfish washed up on miles of beach. He keeps tossing as many as he can back into the ocean. A grumpy old man comes up tells him there are hundreds of starfish and miles of beach. That he can’t make a difference. He picks another one up chucks it into the ocean and says ‘I made a difference to that one.’

Jackson is Tim’s starfish. He’s going to make a difference for him. Take down Stanton cause it’s the right thing to do. Save future rookies and suspects from his skewed POV of the world. Owens is the old man saying they can't make a difference. So why even bother? He tells them they’re fighting a rigged system. They’ll never win and Doug won’t go down without a fight...How true those words will be in the next ep.

~~~~

Side notes non-chenford

Nice to see Nyla get a little flirting action. I don’t like her with this guy but still good for her to have someone post-Donovan to get the ball rolling.

John’s SL with his mom is rough. But I have to commend him (I know I rarely do that lol) to cut his toxic mother off. His line ‘ I love you I’ll always love you. I just don’t want to see you anymore.’ Damn that’s rough and yet I get it. I wish I could do that with mine. She’s just as narcissistic and manipulative as John’s is so props for doing that for his mental Well being. I actually envy him in this moment.

Wopez’s baby SL was stressful I did love Nyla being there for her through it though. Also watching Lopez destroy her boss about being pregnant then have to walk it back LOL gotta love Angela.

Thank you as always to those who continue to support these reviews. The likes/comments/reblogs are everything to me. So thank you all. See you all in 3x05 :)

#Caitlin Rewatches The Rookie #chenford #chenford hiatus #waiting on s6 #fall rewatch #s3 #3x04 Sabotage #the rookie 3x04 #otp: doing my job #otp: you know me so well. too well #otp: some things matter more #tim x lucy #lucy x tim #the rookie #tim bradford #lucy chen #eric winter #melissa o'neil #tim bradford x lucy chen

[linhfoxmoive]

Finally decided to try out Gacha Life 2 on my PC and attempt at making my persona, Revik. And I gotta say it was really fun and it looks good! Allow me to compare Revik in Gacha Club vs. Gacha Life 2! So here is the old 😒 (This was the only most recent image I had of him from Gacha Club ngl, he was just really happy in this image about seeing a friend-)

NOW TAKE IN THE NEW!! 😍

He/She's so gay, I mean what. Gah I just love how how he looks! Now he can have a much more accurate hairstyle to how I actually draw it, and an overall much closer look to his actual design!! :D

I am also really happy to see the character design slightly change as well and be improved in my personal opinion, am very much glad I added a secondary green instead of just the one light green. Also that Gacha Club image was made basically an entire year ago which is kinda crazy to me that Gacha Life 2 exists now and has so many customization options-

And I realize now that I may post about my persona every now and then, but I never really give any info about anything for him except that he's a shapeshifter. So here's a whee bit of information about him, very random info though I'll admit- (Also yes canonly he laughs like a snake because fun fact, he's mainly based off to be like a snake cause well, he's kinda like a snake in the figurative way 💀)

Honestly I got a lot of random lore and info about Revik, I just kinda get too nervous I come off as egotistical if I just keep rambling about my own persona- So, uhm, yeah he actually has a true form since the one I show all the time is his more human one. But I think I'll show the true form when I can get the confidence for it one day lmao? (Hopefully soon though hghh) 😩👍 Also yes, I did base off the random quote of his laughing from Brawlhalla's “Meet the Legends” thingy- Bonus image of @malue-505 and my persona in an image together! Canonly in their lore they are buddies, and honestly I love how they both radiate such different energy- Sneaky snake shapeshifter and curious fancy deer bestie goals!! 🤝

I also love how the designs look good together as well, with Revik being mainly green and having dark hair while Malue being mainly blue with white hair. Not only that, but as well as both having such a well dressed attire like gah dang okay 🥰💅✨

Expect to probably see more Gacha Life 2 stuff, cause it's a really fun game! And expect more of my persona cause uhm, I'm really proud of his design as it developed over the years so yeah- 😅

#link revik (my persona) #malue deer (friend's persona) #gacha club #gacha life 2 #link's rant post #honestly I was hesitant about giving Revik that kind of snake laugh cause I didn't wanna be cringe/dumb #until A.K.I. came to existence and then I was heavily enouraged to go with it lmao #also forgot to mention something but it's not that important #imma try to refer to my persona as mainly Revik AKA his last name because my friends call me Link #and I wanna avoid getting confused again if they meant as in my persona or me 💀 #but also cause I love the name Link but Legend of Zelda protagonist exists and is haunting me everyday #and I swear I didn't mean for them to have the same name 😭 #besides Revik is just more original sounding but UhM ANYWAYS #have a nice day/night homies hshhg

[heliza24]

Character arcs and themes in The Seven

I spend a lot of time in my other main fandom writing meta about dramatic structure and character development, because I’m a playwright and a writer and I can’t turn that part of my brain off even when I’m in love with a show. I haven’t seen a whole lot of meta do that for Dimension 20 yet. I think people might be a little hesitant to write meta for D20 because Actual Plays are based on improv and don’t have a single author, so it feels like a medium we can’t dig into in the same way. But I don’t think that’s true! Once the campaigns are shot and uploaded, they’re complete texts that I think deserve the same kind of loving scrutiny that we offer our other favorite TV shows. So let’s spend a minute talking about character and story structure in Dimension 20, and why I love The Seven so much. 

It’s a kind of accepted maxim that DnD shouldn’t have a main character, and I think that’s very true for home games, where the point is that each friend should be having an equal amount of fun. But I think actual plays are a little different. The fact that they are observed innately changes them (like the way that particles do when they are observed by scientists) and I think the D20 structure, where campaigns are limited to a run time akin to a long TV show, does that even more. A protagonist is traditionally the character who answers the dramatic question of a piece, which is the driving question that moves the narrative and themes of a story forward. I think a lot of D20 seasons end up having a protagonist, or character that is more intricately linked to the central questions and themes of the campaign than the others. Some DnD purists may not like that, but for me as a story nerd? It’s what makes the whole thing work. 

I think The Seven is a perfect example of this. Each one of the six PCs is so well developed. The first episode of this campaign is one of the most effective of any season I think, giving us such a great grounding in each character’s home life, and the personal conflicts that arise from it.  It kicks off Antiope’s complicated relationship with leadership, Katja’s desire to be recognized by her father, Penny’s struggle with perfectionism, Ostentatia’s complex feelings around providing for her family and keeping up with the Joneses, and the way that Danielle’s go-with-the-flow attitude has made her less likely to fight for belonging. And Sam? Sam is struggling with feelings of abandonment as she deals with a transphobic birth mother, a best friend who kidnapped her and then died, and an adopted mom who is moving away after a divorce. Sam is being overwhelmed by change in her personal life even while her friendship group threatens to break apart. And change, and how we choose to accept it or fight it, is absolutely at the core theme of The Seven. To be fair, every other character is also struggling to figure out how she feels about the change going on in the party, and that’s a core part of each girl’s journey. But most of them are balancing a personal question alongside the question of the fate of the group (for instance, Antiope has to decide if she will obey or defy her parents, and whether or not she will take the internship and remain with the party. They’re related, but they’re also distinct questions). Sam is the only character whose personal question hooks directly into the central themes of the campaign, and that sets her up perfectly to become the protagonist of the season. 

I think the dramatic question of The Seven is not, as I first thought, Is change good? But actually How do we accept change with grace? And Sam is the character who figures out how to answer this question. Persephone’s performance as Sam is out-of-this-world good. She instinctively moves towards conflict and scenes that add depth to the narrative, and her portrayal of Sam’s pettiness as a defense mechanism is alternatively hilarious and heartbreaking. Her decision to step away from the others and speak to Talura creates a thematic parallel between her and the Eidolon and creates a connection that drives the back half of the season. 

From the moment the lore became clear, I was obsessed with Brennan’s decision to parallel The Seven Maidens with seven goddesses. The Eidolons went through a similar change that the Maidens are currently going through; in order to seek a better future, they dispersed and assumed a new form. The one who cannot accept this change is the one intricately linked with change as a concept; for Talura who represents endings and death to be the one still holding on to her sisters is profound and heartbreaking. The fact that she forms a connection with Sam feels so meaningful. Sam is probably the Maiden most acquainted with change; she’s the only one of the girls who has gone through a gender transition, and the only one who has been adopted and effectively changed who her parents are. But both Sam and Talura are holding on to stability and resisting change with all their might.

I think it’s a credit to the incredible cast that even with Sam in a slightly more central role, none of the other PCs feels undeveloped. I don’t think there’s a weak link at this table, and each player had a moment where they made me laugh and cry. I love the way that Aabria acts as a leader at the table for other players and also a leader in-story as Antiope. I’m obsessed with the way that Rekha can switch seamlessly between horse girl humor and a heartwarming description of Katja’s inner child. Becca’s quick improv makes Penny so charming (and I have genuinely never laughed harder than the Laertes scene). Every spell that Erika casts as Danielle is beautiful and magical and I loved seeing her begin to assert her own desires. And Izzy is just hilarious as Ostentatia and does so much to unite the group into a cohesive party (I fucking love you!). 

The other reason that each character feels complete and whole is that they each have an opportunity to answer the questions that are set up in the first episode. The penultimate episode, when each Maiden has the chance to confront time and her own death, lets each player create a moment when their character stares down her demons and learns an important lesson. This is really a classic Brennan move, and it’s one of my favorite tricks that he does to help create a cohesive storyline that fits into the confines of the season episode number. I jokingly described it to @bluedalahorse as that inevitable point in the campaign where Brennan “looks straight into a player’s eyes and calmly asks them if their character will achieve self-actualization”.  (Also Lou totally calls Brennan out on this in Fantasy High season 2 when Brennan casually asks “so what’s your character’s greatest fear?” when they head into the Forest of the Nightmare King. “That is the most Brennan thing I’ve ever heard!” Lmao yes it is!)  Those moments are always my favorite in any season, because I can feel the oxygen get sucked out of the room as the story magic starts happening. The fact that it’s improv, and that the player may not rise to the implicit question Brennan is asking, is part of the suspense. But in The Seven I think each player knocks it out of the park, and I can’t watch that episode without fully weeping. 

Even the way the final battle goes down reinforces the theme of learning how to accept change. By a happy accident of dice and initiative order (and I, think, a slight thumb on the scales on Brennan’s part) the battle allows Sam to complete her arc and answer the dramatic question of the show. Sam uses her reaction to save Zelda from Telura’s attack, so she’s powerless when Telura launches a power word kill spell against her. After she goes down, Penny is next in initiative, and although she can’t do anything to revive Sam, is able to remind Telura that The Seven are her sisters, not unlike Telura’s own. Ostentatia is next in initiative, but Brennan has Izzy hold her turn because (I’m assuming) he wants to let Sam/Persephone hit a story beat before Ostentatia revivifies her. Instead he skips to Danielle, who has a connection to Anima, the eidolon of life, who Telura is currently partially presenting as. Danielle and Anima are able to encourage Telura to let go, and to let Sam live, before Brennan switches to a short role play moment between Sam and Telura. It makes total sense that Sam would be able to talk directly to Telura in this state between life and death since Telura is the goddess of death. Sam is able to comfort Telura in this moment and acknowledge that although she’s scared of change, she’s learned that it represents opportunity as much as it represents an ending. “Sometimes change happens,” she reassures Talura, “but it doesn’t mean it will be worse or that you can’t find joy in what happens. And if you never try you’ll never know what can be.” In that moment Sam has completed her character arc; she’s a totally different person from the girl who was desperate to keep her friends exactly as they were at the beginning of the campaign. Her new conviction convinces Talura that it is ok to let go, and to become scattered through the world as the concept of death like her sisters have already done. Ostentatia revives Sam, and Talura stops attacking.  “We can’t promise the future will never hurt,” the other eidolons tell Talura, “but we can promise that if we’re together it will be worth it.”  And that’s the real lesson of The Seven: people will grow and change, but that doesn’t mean we can’t hold each new version of our loved ones in our hearts. We can keep our friends close while still giving each other the grace to become the people we were meant to be. 

Everyone has an absolutely incredible moment in the final battle (Antiope killing Charity! Katja tripping the earth eidolon!) but the way that Sam completes her character arc is especially special to me. As a former teen girl and someone who values her friendships above everything, this lesson that we can love our friends through change is close to my heart. It’s one I keep learning over and over, and I love the way it was explored in The Seven.

#dimension 20 #d20 #The Seven #d20 the seven #my meta

[open-hearth-rpg]

Engagement & Flashbacks: Great RPG Mechanics #RPGMechanics: Week Three

I have sat through hundreds of in-game planning sessions. There’s an objective, maybe specific, maybe general, maybe- god forbid- we’re discussing which objective we want to approach. These can be wonderful and interesting moments to explore character and role play to show what your PC values. They can be. But those are exceptions rather than the rule. I look back at the hours sunk into those which ended up in painful, circular, player-tension exacerbating, and time-consuming bad meetings.

My particular pet peeve from this is the player who listens and waits until someone has proposed a line of action and then says they don’t like it. They point out corner-case problems and wild possibilities which *could* make things collapse. But when pressed for fix suggestions or alternatives, they shrug their shoulders. I loathe them. I’ve seen many of them. Playing them at the ttrpg table made me that much more ready to flip out when people did this in actual work meetings in the real world.

Don’t get me wrong– I love it when a plan comes together. There’s few things more satisfying as a GM than to watch the players consider a problem, develop a solution, and reveal how their individual talents can save the day. But setting a planning session into motion is like lighting a stick of dynamite. Sometimes the players come together and manage to extinguish that fuse. More times the dynamite goes off and blows a hole in the session.

So that has long been an established problem that GMs have worked through, usually by degrees of heavy-handed riding the whip.

Blades in the Dark provided another solution and one, honestly, which completely changed my approach to this at every table I run. You have a job, a score, an objective. You can keep choosing that tight by filing down the number of options. Once you know generally what you want to do, you define the kind task and what’s your key element. Then we go to the engagement roll.

That roll is based on the challenge of the situation, the resources and information you have, and preparation (but only in the loosest sense). Good stuff gives you more dice, bad stuff takes away dice. You roll a pool of d6s and check the result. If the highest die is a six, we start the scene on the job with your characters in control. They’ve gotten past the easy layers and are in the more challenging part, but in a good spot. On a 4-5 it's more a mixed bag– you start out with some things at risk. You have to overcome a standard challenge right away. On a 1-3 we drop you in the shit. You’re in but things have gone wrong and the situation’s desperate.

But it's the other half of the system which completes this and makes things brilliant. Players can flashback to preparations they’ve made. They can improvise these on the fly. They can cost stress and require a test, but that’s dependent on how wild or impactful that prep is. Combining that with the flexible loadout system makes the players feel OK about rolling into a situation without having spent an hour working out all the possibilities.

And at least at my tables, the secret is that flashbacks don’t get done that often. Sometimes PCs will get jammed in a corner or a player will have a particularly clever concept. But Flashbacks IMHO provide a mental cushion for risk-adverse players. It’s the GM saying, “let’s get to playing, I’m not going to screw you over, and you’ll have the chance to pull cool stuff out.” And it works– and I promise you I use it in just about every game I run. We still do meetings and planning discussions, but I know I can wrap it up and move it to the play if that begins to look like it is going to blow up.

Side-note: Blades isn’t the first game to lean on flashbacks as a key element. I think that would be Leverage, which is an amazing ground-breaking game by a dynamite team of designers. It uses that to model the reveals of the TV shows it's based on. There may be others, but that’s the one I remember.

#ttrpg #rpg #rpg mechanics

[binarystargames]

Removing/Reducing Dice in ANOINTED, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Token

I had been thinking about the topic of randomness when writing entries for Regions for ANOINTED23, but Spencer Campbell (GilaRPGs, creator of LUMEN/RUNE/etc) wrote two blog posts (with a third on the way) that got me thinking about it. Specifically, I'm wondering if I could/should just remove dice almost entirely from ANOINTED, my GMless or GM'd/group or solo soulslike game in development.

The current situation

In the interest of not assuming people have any idea what I'm talking about (and also to have it in one handy place for later) I'm going to list out the random/non-random parts of the game.

Random

Determining memories from a table in chargen and play (though this one's optional, you're allowed to just pick one or make something up, will ignore this as a result, you do kind of need some kind of randomization to roll on tables after all)

Attribute checks (the game has 4 attributes, Prowess/Skill/Conviction/Knowledge, which add to a few derived stats, act as weapon/spell prereqs. To do various things, you roll that many dice, FitD/LUMEN style (take the highest, 1-3/4-5/6 fail/partial/success).

Disposition checks (you can use a specific kind of Attribute check with custom values for enemy groups to change how you interact with them, like a Skill check to make them Unaware instead of Aggressive if you want to sneak by/ambush them, that sort of thing)

Dodge and Parry (you spend Stamina or Focus respectively, roll dice equal to your current Stamina or Focus and take the highest: Parry needs a 6, Dodge needs a 6 but lets you spend more Stamina and reroll on a 4-5). Enemies can Dodge/Parry but it uses a different mechanic (roll under a number).

Not Random

Activating weapon/spell abilities just spends Stamina/Focus and an Action. No roll needed. (This is part of why I think it's a good candidate to try this.)

Movement.

Enemy actions, even in GMless. They're purely based off of distance from a PC.

Attribute/Disposition Checks

This was the thing that got me thinking about it before Spencer's articles: When making areas, I didn't really like how I imagined this would play out given the Souls-ish checkpoint design. I'm growing kind of lukewarm on success/partial/fail design without a good reason for it anyway but especially in the context of a solo game it feels like a weird fit. I'm bad enough at coming up with consequences for games as a GM, coming up with them solo is tough. It also doesn't feel very strategic at all, you either succeed or you don't, which isn't a great feeling of choice.

Instead, I think I want to use a token-based system for it.

You have a number of tokens for each Attribute equal to the Attribute's value. They restore upon return to a Sanctuary.

Obstacles, opportunities, etc that require something like this to proceed are looking for a certain number of tokens from a specific Attribute or two listed. If you don't have that many, you can't do it.

Right now I'm thinking 2, 3, 6, and 10 Tokens as like easy/medium/hard/nasty cutoffs. For example, something you have to climb that's a little tough might be noted Prowess 3, or if you can tough it out just by persistence, Prowess/Conviction 3.

This works as-is for solo or single+GM play. For multiple PCs, I think I'll raise those cutoffs by 1 per extra PC (so if you have 4 total, it becomes +3 for 5/6/9/13), but you can split any of them two ways as long as it's an even (or even+1 in the case of an odd number, so like 6/7 for a 13) split.

If you have a proper tool to do something - climbing tools for climbing, rope for descending, lockpick for picking locks - halve the number of tokens (round up). This is what makes those 10's more possible before like, endgame stats.

You can restore all tokens to one Attribute with a use of Grace (aka not-Estus), so it's harder to block yourself, but you're spending from Health Restoration to do it.

For Disposition, same thing. An encounter currently looks like:

Default Defensive, 4-5 Aggressive, 6 Wary

for something where you need to roll a 4-5 when trying to aim for Wary or a 6 to aim for Unaware. Whereas with this it might be:

Default Defensive, Aggressive 3, Wary 6

which indicates token costs.

Dodge and Parry

This one's a little trickier. The goal prior to this was to make it feel different than blocking and it needs to maintain that.

I think the play is to introduce a number of Reactions alongside number of Actions. (Right now characters have 2 + Skill Actions per turn, it'd probably be 2 + Skill Actions and the same number of Reactions to start with.)

A Dodge Reaction is always available. It negates all Harm* and you move a hex. You always spend 3 Stamina to do it but it takes 1 + Encumbrance Reactions (but you can overspend at no cost as long as you have at least 1 Reaction).

Enemy attacks with Slow require 1 fewer Reaction (min of 0). Makes it make more sense for "fat-rollers" to try that against really nasty slow stuff.

Enemy Dodge/Parry is probably just "number of times they can do this automatically in a round".

That * is because Undodgeable is probably going to be changed to "if you dodge out of the AOE, you're fine, otherwise you take Harm as if you didn't dodge". We're not doing I-frame stuff on tabletop, if you're in the shit you're just in the shit.

A Guard Reaction requires a piece of equipment with the Guard ability (shield, etc). It uses 1 Reaction but spends Stamina equal to Harm blocked, or 0 Reactions if it blocks half as much Harm as its Defense.

Enemy Guard works as it currently does, no number of reactions tracked, just boosts current defenses/poise.

A Parry reaction requires a piece of equipment with the Parry ability (shield with Parry, parrying dagger, etc). It negates Harm and the attacker is staggered. You always spend 5 Focus to do it and it takes 1 Reaction. (At 0 Knowledge, this is all of your Focus. At 5, you can do it twice. It's very powerful but costs a lot.)

Spell keyword works as-is.

Unwieldy adds 1 spent Reaction to this.

Notes:

Dodge/Parry lose the "roll dice equal to current Stamina/Focus" thing but I'm not terribly married to that idea honestly so that's probably fine.

This makes Skill a bit better, which is worth keeping an eye on, but also means Skill builds are way more dodgy, which was kind of the intention prior to this anyway.

We'll see how this works! Might mock out what a diceless approach might look like in APOCALYPSE FRAME at some point later, I've got some conversion ideas.

#ttrpg #ttrpg design #anointed

[wixelt]

Was going through some notes I archived on my PC when I got my new phone, & found something I wrote years ago & never got around to sharing.

Basically, many years ago, I wrote the loose outline of a rather grim Gravity Falls AU, & while it’ll likely never go anywhere, i’m impulsively deciding to share what I wrote, now.

Broken Falls AU

Alternately After Falls, Afterword, Afterworld or Gravity World, as I couldn’t make up my mind.

Technically this is a post-show AU, but only by virtue of the time-frame.

The Prologue:

In the final battle with Bill Cipher, he does the 'eenie meenie' murder thing with Dipper & Mabel when he catches them, & settles on Mabel.

Via some means, he's learned Ford - at least in this AU - doesn't actually know how to break the barrier around the town, so he intends to kill Mabel out of spite.

Dipper, in desperation & panic, pleads with Bill, telling him without thinking that he'll take any deal the demon wants to make if he spares his sister & frees everyone.

Unexpectedly, Bill agrees, seemingly concocting a new plan to spread weirdness... via possessing Dipper.

This time, Dipper's soul is sealed away inside his body rather than being forced out, as Bill exists physically, literally fusing his entire being into Dipper.

While this makes Bill physically weaker, it actually makes him even more powerful as a reality warper. Something about the pact involving physical flesh.

Regardless, it also stops Dipper’s ghost form being a nuisance for him.

Bill keeps his word, at least for now. Mabel, Stan & Ford, with everyone freed from the Fearamid’s decor & the Shacktron, flee.

Mabel tries to stay for her brother, but is convinced she won't be any good to him dead, & concedes in fleeing.

The Main AU:

Almost an entire year has now passed since Weirdmageddon began.

Human!Bill has utilized some loophole in how the barrier works via push his powers through his human body, forcing the barrier’s area of effect to gradually increase.

This is gradually spreading weirdness further & further without breaking the region’s weirdness magnetism law. At present, the area's a little over twice its original size.

Bill & his Henchmaniacs mostly ignore the humans inside the barrier now, or don't actively pursue, only occasionally hunting out of boredom or if they run into them.

With the Mystery Shack a wreck & far from where it was originally, Ford's woodland bunker was the next sanctuary for the locals.

However, shortly before the present it was attacked, & while most survivors escaped, they're now on the move constantly.

Ford has considered trying to clear out the UFO under the town & make a base there, as Bill either doesn't know it exists or just can’t touch it.

With a year, an apocalypse & a stubborn grand-niece, Stan & Ford have largely made amends, but still bicker, as siblings do. It... can get heated, at times.

13 (now almost 14) year old Mabel, despite all that life has thrown at her, is still somewhat optimistic, cheerful & determined.

The past year’s given her the experiences & skills -both good & bad - to use her passion for more things.

She’s developed a bit of a dour & cynical streak, though, often seeing the worst case scenario before even getting to a preferred best case.

She wears Dipper's hat constantly, only taking it off to sleep & reacting violently if anyone tries to take it.

She’s also picked up her brother’s habit of chewing pens.

Oh, also, because its me we’re talking about, Mabifica’s a thing, either before or during the AU. The alternative wouldn't work here, anyway.

Due to his deal with Dipper, Bill can't harm Mabel without first releasing his hold on Dipper’s body, nor can anyone knowingly working for him.

There are loopholes he tries to exploit whenever Mabel’s antics irk him, but the key one’s always to get others to go after her without them knowing he's involved.

As Bill had already begun trying to kill Mabel as Dipper stopped him, Mabel was directly exposed to chaotic energies without actually dying.

This manifests by giving her what Ford calls 'Oddsight'. When active (it can be turned off) she's immune to & can ward off some weirdness types.

This is only one among a number of other abilities that develop later.

In this state, Mabel’s right eye turns black with a yellow, elongated iris - a colour flip of the eyes of someone controlled by Bill.

Using this curse often strains her heavily at first, so it comes out rarely.

Wendy, Soos, Candy, Grenda, Pacifica & Gideon all survived, & all but Gid - who left with his surviving bikers - have stuck with Mabel’s group.

No word on anyone else, though. Past me didn’t get that far.

For safety, Ford’s compiled new copies of the journals from a set of backup notes he made just before things went down & stored in a secure locker in his bunker.

He’s also begun writing a 4th journal documenting Weirdmageddon. He still plans to throw them all in the bottomless pit once they get through this, though.

Mabel always has at least one journal on her at all times, most often the 3rd.

And that’s pretty much where past me got up to with this idea. As I said, I probably won’t do anymore with it, but I wanted it to finally see the light of day.

Enjoy! :D

#gravity falls #broken falls au #mabel pines #dipper pines #bill cipher #ford pines #mabifica #pacifica northwest

[stillhavetodothat]

Replaying Nancy Drew without Cheating - Part 13: Danger by Design

Aahh, yes. One of the wackiest PC games ever to make it to the threshold of public consumption (only behind a few other upcoming ND games, but more on that later). I used to think this game came out in response to the popularity of The Devil Wears Prada, another story about a woman working for an unpleasant titan of the fashion industry, but I just googled it and TDWP came out 3 weeks before Danger by Design. Unless Her has the most efficient development team in history (spoiler: they do not. Just look at the past 8 years or so), this has nothing to do with the movie. And I know that it took longer than 3 weeks to come up with this tangled web of side plots and storylines...I could never have conceived of any of it even if I had 3 years.

The game starts with Nancy getting to Minette’s windmill studio and almost getting bonked in the head by a flying plant. She is there to investigate why Minette, a famous fashion designer, is acting so ~*strangely*~ and report back to the States, where Minette’s biggest investor is just waiting impatiently to pull the plug on the cash flow. Nancy is yelled at, has to hilariously brew a cup of tea based on what Minette’s favorite color is at the moment, and runs all over Paris on errands as part of her new job. She then learns that a French Resistance fighter, Noisette, used to live in the windmill, and proceeds to spend the rest of the game learning more about that instead. It IS a more intriguing mystery, so you can’t blame her. Ultimately, after swimming in the sewers under Paris and going on about her day like everything is fine, Nancy finds Noisette’s secret under the windmill, stumbles by chance upon Minette’s secret, and blocks a couple chops from Minette, who then proceeds to pass out from exhaustion (?????)

So many of the choices here were so interesting to me. I feel like this game is chaotic evil on the scale. I also feel like some of the puzzles here are hard! I was THE CLOSEST I’VE EVER COME TO CHEATING (in this round of playthroughs) at the end when I am locked in the bottom of the windmill, and there are about 100 steps needed to decode the way outta there. What child would ever be able to solve that on her own?? I had to come back to it over multiple days. I was literally thinking about this puzzle throughout the day, like on my commute to work, while eating dinner, while going for a run. It consumed me. Eventually it came to me, after I inspected in detail every item in my inventory. 

Anyways, back to my open questions.

1. First of all, why was there only one French suspect in this entire game? Were they having trouble finding voice actors willing to put on an extremely terrible and unpracticed French accent or what? Furthermore, why did everyone pronounce Minette as “Minn-et,’ even the Parisians? I guess Paris is probably a bit of a melting pot, especially in the fashion world, but I have always been bummed by the lack of French people in this game.

2. Also, why does Nancy struggle SO hard with the one French suspect’s name, when in other games she rattles off French so perfectly that you’d think it was her native tongue? Also, she needs to look up numbers and colors in a book, but at the end of the game she is able to translate a long letter written completely in French with ease? Something isn’t adding up here.

3. Why was Heather wearing that hideous brown tie? Surely that can’t be considered fashion?

4. I actually used to wonder why Minette’s designs are so absolutely absurd, but I think they are hilarious now. Feels like we are being trolled by HerInteractive by forcing us to put together THIS outfit for Prudence Rutherford’s cruise.

5. Why does a squirrel almost sabotage the entire game for you? Additionally, HOW in god’s name is anyone supposed to figure out how to deter the squirrel from messing up your work? I ONLY was able to get past this part because I vividly remember searching the forums back in the day to figure this out.

6. Who is buying the shitty paint-by-numbers of the Mona Lisa from the guy in Pont Nouf? For more than 15 Euros, presumably? Also, I think this is the first time I’ve ever messed up one of the paintings, because I DO NOT remember the vendor completely berating Nancy on her carelessness. This guy just screams scam artist to me.

7. Why did I find the catacombs so challenging as a child? I remember sitting at my computer, furiously clicking, SHRIEKING IN FEAR as I heard the footsteps of the French policia approaching, when really getting to the entrance to the sewers involves like 2 turns from the entrance to the catacombs. This isn’t really a question about the game, it’s more a question of my intellect as a young teenager.

8. What is the rhyme or reason for the timeline of this game? Is there a hidden in-game clock that is running all day, and let’s you know when it’s too late to be out by yourself? Or is it just completely random? Either way, it makes for some hilarious timing. Minette tells me to go to the park to pick up some stuff for her, and I just go straight to bed instead. Minette tells me to take the cockroaches and release them, and I just...take the cockroaches to bed with me?? JJ is called into Minette’s studio for a fitting, and she has to stay there all night long???

10. What is going on with some of these characters’ teeth? Strong Bruce the Shark vibes here.

11. Why are the plotlines completely disjointed? It wasn’t until I played the game through this time that I took the time to really think about the story, and realize that the two parts had absolutely nothing to do with each other. Noisette and Minette, apart from both residing in the same windmill at different points in history and both having French-y ‘ette names, have literally nothing in common?? Dieter and his family history were a complete red herring to what the actual mystery was? And when you actually find the stained glass under the windmill, and you breathe a sigh of relief because it truly feels like the end...it isn’t the end at all?? because you actually haven’t solved the mystery you came to Paris to solve?? A mystery which is actually far less interesting than Noisette’s??

12. The actual ending here, once you find your way out of the windmill’s basement (and that took me a MINUTE), is bonkers. The developers had to have been tired and just trying to wrap this up stat. Putting your hand up to block Minette’s slow-motion chops for 10 straight minutes feels like something someone came up with at 3am after their fifth cup of coffee, a cigarette pinched between two fingers. And yet, it somehow really fits into the feel of the game. It has certainly brought the ND community together, because I have never heard anyone who didn’t think this was a total WTF moment.

13. WAS Minette having an affair with Sonny Joon? I just heard this theory and I am running with it. What else would explain an alien face tattoo, and her just randomly dumping Dieter? I am choosing to believe that this is the case - otherwise, there is no explanation behind why she even got the tattoo in the first place, and having this be the reason for the mask feels a bit underwhelming.

Despite the insanity of this game...it’s a fun time. It certainly holds up on a replay, because the story is convoluted and there’s no way you’ll remember from the last time you played. Also, this is when Her really starts busting out the near impossible puzzles that no young child could ever solve on his or her own (I am already dreading the picture frame puzzle in SAW because HOW will I refrain from cheating then??)

Join me as I head off to Hawaii to sort bug poop and flirt with Big Daddy Mike. CRE is maybe one of the most lowly rated games in the entire series, so naturally I am stoked to replay!

#nancy drew #nancy drew games #nancy drew pc games #herinteractive #clue crew #gaming #pc gamer #danger by design

[goombasa]

Everything Actiblizz Owns and What's Happening With It

Hey all.

So a big topic of discussion last year, especially near the last fourth of the year, was the fact that Microsoft had successfully acquired Activision Blizzard for around $69 Billion dollars.

Despite what the number might suggest, this is most certainly not nice. Acti-Blizz was far from a perfect, or even good, company, but a single company consolidating power is never a positive.

However, beyond the horrifying, monopolistic implications this could have down the road, this did get me thinking… Activision-Blizzard has been around for a very long time, in multiple incarnations, and they own a lot of different IPs. So I thought it might be a good idea to go over what they own, or rather what Microsoft now owns, and what's actually been done with these series and IPs recently, if anything. Because Activision-Blizzard owns a lot of stuff, but they don't necessarily do a lot with them, as seems to be the case with a lot of larger game publishers who have chewed up and spat out smaller studios.

I'm going to do my best to cover all of what Acti-Blizz owns, but I don't think this list is going to be entirely comprehensive, because beyond the big names that everyone knows about, companies this big often have nebulous piles of acquired IPs that they just quietly sit on and do nothing with, content in the fact that no one else is making money off of them, even when they're just rotting there in solitude. So if you see any sort of omissions that you think might below to Acti-Blizz, or any big, glaring ommissions, please let me know, because I'd love to know what sort of stuff a company this large, and with this long a history, is just letting waste away in their copyright office. I'm well aware of how prolific the company was during the early days of gaming for things like Atari 2600 and DOS computers, but I wasn't sure if I should include them or not, and because of their sheer volume, I decided not to for now.

Also, while many of my personal thoughts in this moment are pretty negative, I would in no way be disappointed to be proven wrong on my personal predictions here, many of which are a bit sour. But hey, the gaming industry itself has been souring on me for a good long while. I love games, I love the people who make them, I just hate the companies that run things.

So, let's get started:

Caesar

First Game: Caesar, 1992 (Developed by Impressions Games and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Latest Game: Caesar IV, 2006 (Developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment, Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Personal Thoughts: Historical RTS games don't feel like they're very prevalent anymore, do they? I don't know how well this series did because, to be honest, I had never heard of it before. I'm assuming it did decently well, as a sequel cropped up every now and then, but consideirng that the last game in the series was  released not long before Vivendi Games, who owned Sierra at the time, got gobbled up by Activision, I'm guessing this is an IP that got lost in the shuffle. Always there, just buried deep in the vault with a majority of the rest of Sierra's back catalogue.

Personal Hopes: We aren't exactly hurting for good RTS series nowadays. Civilization, Anno, Age of Empires, Northgard, Supremem Commander, Starcraft 2, Driftlands, Tropico, we're not hurting for good strategy. While I could potentially see this coming back considering that Microsoft pushes games just as heavily on the PC as they do on console, They'd be wading into a pretty crowded market, and Caesar isn't a name that resonates very strongly nowadays. I doubt a lot of the wider gaming market that Microsoft often targets would even know that it's based on a pre-existing series of games at first glance.

Call of Duty

First Game: Call of Duty, 2003 (Developed by Infinity Ward)

Latest Game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfae III, 2023 (Developed by Sledgehammer Games)

Personal Thoughts: I've never played a single game in the series. It is interesting to me as an outsider how it continues to be one of the highest selling series for the company when anyone I ask about it says that the series hasn't been good in years now. Not in any danger of having production ended, but eventually I do think it's going to become a console exclusive. I don't believe a word of what Phil Spencer says when he says they want to keep putting the games out on rival consoles. It might not happen right away, but I'm pretty sure it will happen eventually, even if they have to make a whole new series to justify it.

Personal Hopes: I have no interest in the series myself, but I do hope that those who play the series get some games down the line from here on out that they can say are genuinely good, rather than people buying it out of obligation and just thinking the game is mediocre.

Candy Crush

First Game: Candy Crush Saga, 2012 (Developed and Originally Published by King Games)

Latest Game: I… THINK this is the only game  in this series? Correct me if I'm wrong, but despite how big it is, I think Candy Crush might be standing alone.

Personal Thoughts: What do you want me to say? It's Candy Crush. It basically came pre-installed with Windows for a while. It's one of those things where it's been around for so long and is apparently super popular, and yet I cannot think of anything good anyone has said about it. It's not even that unique of a concept. Match-Three games are so synonymous with mobile games now that there's an absolute deluge of them whenever you look around any app store. Heck, I don't think it's the only candy-based match-three game anymore. And of course, like every game made by King, it's designed to be predatory and push you towards microtransactions for helpful little tools you can use to get past those super hard puzzles that are holding you up, so it's already there on my shit-list.

Personal Hopes: It's Candy Crush. It's going to be fine, so long as it's still making money. If I have any hopes for this at all, I hope it just goes away, along with most of its micro-transaction pushing ilk.

Crash Bandicoot

First Game: Crash Bandicoot, 1996 (Developed by Naughty Dog, originally published by Sony Computer Entertainment)

Latest Game: Crash Team Rumble, 2023 (Developed by Toys for Bob)

Personal Thoughts: They had such a good setup for a comback with this one. Activision gobbles up Vivendi, who gobbled up Sierra Entertainment, who had the rights for Crash at the time, they did nothing with the IP for years, then bring it back with the N.Sane Trilogy, a very warmly remake of the first three games. Follow that up with a remake of the equally as beloved Crash Team Racing (subtitled Nitro Fueled), and then they release a long awaited original continuation with Crash 4: It's About Time. And then what? They turn Toys for bob and Vicarious Visions, the studios responsible for this excellent resurgence for the character, into support studios for CoD, release a maligned endless-runner mobile game that barely lasts two years, and take a scrapped multiplayer mode for Crash 4 and turn it into an online only MOBA game. They've squeezed the blood from this stone and they're happy to just put it back into the vault until they need another big of nostalgic goodwill. And I don't think that's going to change now that Microsoft owns the IP either. Microsoft has a few kid-friendly, or cartoonish IPs and they aren't chomping at the bit to do anything with them because those games don't appeal to their primary base. I just don't see this series continuing in any meaningful way under Microsoft's stewardship. It is still early days, though. Crash 4 was only a couple years ago, and despite a rather small player base, Crash Team Rumble is still active and getting updates, so there is a chance that we might see something more substantial in the near future.

Personal Hopes: Well after all that belly aching and my pessimistic outlook, my own home is that if they do continue using Crash and friends, I want to see more like Crash 4 in the future. Maybe do away with the more egregious 100% requirements and just focus on making a fun, straightforward platformer. Make it a smaller, more budget conscious project, something that doesn't mess with the formula laid down by 4 too much rather than trying to make it a big spectacle. And if they decide to remake other games in the series down the line, I would love to see a more complete version of Twinsanity, a version of that game with some of the cut content reintroduced would be real interesting I think.

Diablo

First Game: Diablo, 1997 (Devloped by Blizzard North, PS1 Version by Climax Studios)

Latest Game: Diablo IV, 2023 (Developed by Blizzard Team 3, Blizzard Albany)

Personal Thoughts: Hoo boy. If ever there was an example of a game company's shift in ideology. I have not played the most recent game. My experience mostly comes from the first two games, which were great dungeon crawlers. Never tried the third, or the remaster of 2, and let's be honest, Diablo has not been in the best place as of late. A horribly received mobile game in Immortal was released, which was hideously grindy, and then IV comes out and is just littered in microtransactions, like a disgusting amount. No matter how good the game itself, and I have heard folks saying that the game itself is a fun enough dungeon crawler, you just can't excuse how much is being charged for cosmetics in this game. It's terrible. The game also has battle passes and has an expansion coming out some time this year, so I'm going to watch this one carefully to see how its monetization pans out as it continues to be updated.

Personal Hopes: Look, the game sold really well, and it's apparently great for yanking more money out of people's wallet. I just want to see a diablo free of these nasty monetization practices, but considering that this is becoming part and parcel for a lot of Acti-Blizz's games, I don't see that happening, and I don't think Microsoft has any incentive to stop this sort of practice considering that now, they get a slice of that pie. And if the game can continue to be expanded with more expansions and battle passes and such, I highly doubt we'll be seeing another new Diablo of any form, in quite a while. So for this one? I don't have a lot of high hopes at all.

Empire Earth

First Game: Empire Earth, 2001 (Developed by Stainless Steel Studios and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Latest Game: Empire Earth III, 2007 (Developed by Mad Doc Software and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Personal Thoughts: Didn't take us long to run into another historical RTS series. This one had about just as much staying power as Ceasar, and in fact, most of the games in the series came out in the time between the third and last game in the ceasar series.

Personal Hopes: Most of my thoughts and hopes are pretty similar to Caesar. It's more similar to Age of Empires rather than focusing on a single civilization, but other than that, I feel like it's in the same boat as Caesar.

Gabriel Knight

First Game: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, 1993 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra On-Line)

Latest Game: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers 20th Anniversary Edition, 2014 (Developed by Pinkerton Road Studio, Originally Published by Phoenix Online Publishing)

Personal Thoughts: Ah, our first example of an IP that Activision has acquired and has owned for a good long while now (around 10 years) and has done nothing with it. They've had this IP, a classic point and click series from Sierra, for a decade and I'm willing to bed most folks at the company don't even realize that they have it. Now granted, point and click games aren't exactly flying off the shelves, but adventure games in general have been making comebacks in recent years. We had that King's Quest game that was released piecemeal a while ago, and I think that Gabriel Knight could work in that sort of style if someone wanted to take a crack at it. But let's be honest, this is a series that doesn't have near the reach, fanbase, or history that its contemporaries at Sierra had. It's not a King's Quest, it's not a Leisure Suit Larry, it's not a Quest For Glory, and don't get me wrong, that doesn't make this game any less important than those titles, but it's not a series that has the same draw strength as any of those names, which makes Activision taking a chance on revitalizing this series, even with, say, an N.Sane style remake of the first three games, very unlikely. And despite the original creator, Jane Jenson, stating that she's interested in making a fourth game, she admits that the legal tangle with Activision-Blizzard makes that very unlikely. Doubly so now that Microsoft owns Activision-Blizzard, who ate Vivendi, who ate Sierra.

Personal Hopes: I just want a new game to come out. Again, it doesn't have to even be a lavish production. A small digital-only point and click would be great. Or some remakes of the first three games. Get it out where more folks can see it, already! And this is coming from someone who is garbage at Adventure games. I just want to see what a more modern take on this series and genre could be like.

Geometry Wars

First Game: Geometry Wars, 2003 (Developed by Bizarre Creations, originally published by Bizarre Creations)

Latest Game: Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved, 2016 (Developed by Lucid Games)

Personal Thoughts: I'm honestly surprised that we haven't seen more from this series over the years. You'd think that occasionally dropping a small, arcade-style experience like this would be an assured means of making something comparatively quick and easy compared to the constant deluge of AAA ‘blockbusters’ splurging forth from Activision's maw. Yet the series has been dormant since 2016, since basically every massive game studio only knows how to make massive games now. They don't want to make smaller, more digestible experiences, because those aren't the most profitable or something like that.

Personal Hopes: Considering that this game was originally a Microsoft-made series, a darling of the Xbox Live Arcade, I do think that we're going to see this series come back in some way shape or form. The question is going to be whether or not it's going to be more worth it compared to the indie space, where we've seen plenty of 2D twin stick shooters come out over the years, quite a few of them having a look or feel pretty close to what Geometry wars is. Still, I'd like to see another entry in this series, even if just a little bonus game you can play over on Game Pass or something.

Guitar Hero/DJ Hero

First Game: Guitar Hero, 2005 (Developed by Harmonix, Originally Published by RedOctane)

Latest Game: Guitar Hero Live, 2015 (Developed by Freestyle Games)

Personal Thoughts: All right, this one, I get why it isn't around anymore. Guitar Hero was THE rhythm game series to have back in the 2000's, what with its awesome controller and having a rhythm game based around classic and contemporary rock songs, rather than the typical pop, dance, or house music you saw in series like DDR… and also whatever Donkey Konga was trying to do. But between Guitar Hero, its attempted sister series DJ Hero, and its future rival Rock Band, the genre quickly became very oversaturated, the popular bands were mined clean, and we were drowning in a sea of plastic peripherals. No one is really eager to see this series return, and I don't see how you could easily bring it back. No one wants to have to buy a bunch of peripherals to have an optimal experience anymore, and while you can technically play the games with an ordinary controller if you really want to, the whole draw of the games was being able to feel like you were actually playing something resembling a guitar.

Personal Hopes: None here. Guitar Hero had its time in the sun, it was a fun fad, but I think that's all it was. We have plenty of other rhythm games to play now and the genre has been expanding out into other mixed genres as well. We have rhythm beat-em-ups like No Straight Roads and Hi-Fi Rush, or rhythm FPS games like Bullets Per Minute. And traditional rhythm games are doing well enough too with things like the Theaterythm series from Final Fantasy, or independent and free games that are still decently big and infinitely more customizable like OSU! and Stepmania. And then there are the funny weird ones like Trombone Champ, which lets you experience playing an instrument (badly) without the need for an extra set of plastic in your home. If they could find a way to make the experience still feel engaging without the need of peripherals, maybe there's a chance of it coming back, but I don't have high hopes for this one, even under new management.

Gun

First Game: Gun, 2005 (Developed by Neversoft)

Latest Game: Uh… there's only one game in this IP

Personal Thoughts: I'm kind of surprised with this one. This is an Activision Original, they've had it since before they merged with Blizzard, and during its hayday, it was pretty warmly received, basically got ported to every sku possible at the time, and it's even still available on steam right now. It's certainly a bit on the clunky side, and twenty bucks feels like a lot to be asking for an old PS2 era game… but that's also sidestepping the fact that it also does not have the best portrayal of Native Americans, to the point that it was boycotted by the Association for American Indian Development for the stereotypes portrayed in the game. It's a game that, even in its most recent re-release, still has that problematic element, that was still problematic when the game was released. So yeah, I'm surprised that we haven't seen other games using this IP… but I am surprised that the game is still up for sale in a time where such problematic content is more uncomfortable than ever.

Personal Hopes: I mean, the game might have legs for the future, but you'd have to definitely revamp that image a bit. Go back and start from scratch, with a more sensitive perspective in mind, and maybe there might be some legs to this, but I doubt anything more will be done with this IP. Big publishers don't strike me as really wanting to put the work in to address the insensitive nature of some of the things that were made in the past in hopes of giving such an old IP legs again.

Hearthstone

First Game: Hearthstone, 2014 )Developed and Originally Published by Blizzard Entertainment)

Latest Game: Same as above, it's an IP with one game to its name… unless you consider it part of the greater Warcraft ecosystem

Personal Thoughts: Hearthstone is one of those games that I remember thinking was real interesting when I first heard of it, but even after trying it, it didn't grab me. It's longevity at this point is a very good indicator of just how ingrained it is to its players, even if at this point it is nowhere near as large as it once was, at least from the outside looking in.

Personal Hopes: This one's gonna be fine. It's still around, even if it is more in the background nowadays. I don't see a lot of big Hearthstone news circulating is all I'm saying, but the fact that it's still around suggests that it's still profitable enough to keep going and I don't see Microsoft changing that. The reason it's never gotten another game or a sequel or anything is because it's never needed one, and I don't see that changing now. Unless of course, Blizzard decides to apply their current philosophy on Overwatch to this game. We might see some issues then…

Heroes of the Storm

First Game: Heroes of the Storm, 2015 (Developed and Originally Published by Blizzard Entertainment)

Latest Game: Yet again, one game here

Personal Thoughts: The game is basically dead at this point, as Blizzard ended development on it and put it into maintenance mode halfway through 2022. Near as I can tell, the game can still be played for now, but a game entering into maintenance mode is never a good sign. I admit, it had a better run than most live service, battle royale, and MOBA games nowadays have. It managed to make it for a full seven years, and most live service games WISH they could last for the better half of a decade at this point. But it was a game that was entering into an over-saturated market, even at the time, and it just didn't have the same sort of draw power that other big crossovers had. At least in my opinion.

Personal Hopes: The idea does have legs. I say that as someone who absolutely loves big, dumb crossover games. I love seeing a bunch of characters from different universes clash together, no matter how little sense it made. Even so though, if this IP wants to have any legs underneath it, I think it should reconsider its status as a MOBA, which at this point is a notoriously hard genre to break into, and maybe, now that they have Microsoft as a parent company, consider throwing in characters from the big M, or the other companies that Microsoft owns. I mean, I'd play a MOBA where I could play as the Doom Slayer, that's for sure. Probably won't happen and I doubt anyone's chomping at the bit to try and revitalize the storm, but the option is always there, and I would love to see another crack at a large-scale crossover.

Heavy Gear

First Game: Heavy Gear, 1997 (Developed and Published by Activision)

Latest Game: Heavy Gear II, 1999 (Developed and Published by Activision)

Personal Thoughts: Did you know that Activision made a pair of really cool mech games based off an old sci-fi tabletop RPG? I sure didn't! And hey, it's once again an activision original, so it's something that's been with them for a good, long while! However, this one is a bit more straightforward, I think. Since the games are based on a pre-existing, cross-media universe held by Dream Pod 9. So the games were only one piece of a much larger universe, including a tactical war game, an RPG, and even a card game. So it's pretty obvious why this one isn't showing up anymore, the rights are probably in flux, probably not helped by the fact that the second game sold like… horribly compared with the first.

Personal Hopes: I don't think we'll be seeing a Heavy Gear game again, even if Activsion still technically holds the publishing rights to video game adaptations. They'd probably have to renegotiate a licensing agreement with the original publisher, and while they're still around, I think their stuff has become a lot more niche than it used to be. Activision isn't the same company that they were back in the 90's, so doing something this niche just isn't seen as something in their wheelhouse anymore, which is a shame. We need more fun mech games out there, and Microsoft has had some success with their own sci-fi games before. But this particular universe? Yeah, I don't see it coming back in today's climate. It's a shame, but this one seems like it would be more of a licensing issue than anyone's willing to go through.

Interstate '76

First Game: Interstate `76, 1997 (Developed and Originally Published by Activision)

Latest Game: Yet another single-game IP

Personal Thoughts: You know, I'm not sure why this one didn't take off. It was a Windows only game in the late 90's, so while it didn't have a massive audience, vehicular combat games did tend to be pretty popular around this time. This was two years after the oriignal Twisted Metal, and the same year as Carmaggeddon after all.

Personal Hopes: Vehicular combat games are kind of a rare breed nowadays. Not entirely unheard of, but not something that shows up very often. It'd be a good time, especially considering that there isn't a huge amount of competition kicking around anymore. Not much else to say on this one, I just think a modern vehicle battle game would be nice.

King's Quest

First Game: King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown, 1984 (Developed and originally published by Sierra On-Line)

Latest Game: King's Quest, 2015 (Developed by The Odd Gentlemen)

Personal Thoughts: I love the old King's Quest games. While the Moon logic needed in order to get through some of the puzzles could grate on the nerves now and then, it's another quintessential adventure series, and the episodic return of the series in 2015 was a fantastic way, I felt, to modernize the old flavor of adventure games. It's both important to the history of the medium and still a beloved example of early adventure games. The fact that it's been so quiet is odd to me, especially with how well the revival went over.

Personal Hopes: The remake didn't see any great big revival for the series going forward, but I do think it was a step in the right direction. King's Quest is probably one of, if not the most well known of Sierra's old adventure game catalogue, and if the Odd Gentleman reimagining is any indication, there are still a lot of interesting stories that could be told in this world and with these characters, or with new characters here and there. The question is, though, Is Microsoft going to indulge more in the colorful, cartoonish games of this sort? I doubt it, but hey, if they gave Battletoads another shot, if only for a single game, if they let the right creative team handle this one, I think an occasional episodic adventure in the kingdom of Daventry wouldn't be too bad.

Laura Bow Mysteries

First Game: The Colonel's Bequest, 1989 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Latest Game: The Dagger of Amon Ra, 1992 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Personal Thoughts: Only two games in this series, and this is one of those IP that I would probably call a ‘deep cut.’ It's something that is beloved by those who have experienced it, but that group is fairly small, and the series itself was pretty short lived compared to other Sierra series of the same era, whcih would often get five to six games. I feel like this was one that was hanging out in the background long before Activision acquired Sierra's back catalog.

Personal Hopes: We're probably never going to see this one again. Like I said, there are folks out there who remember these two games very fondly, but in terms of an IP that would be likely to be revived by a major gaming conglomerate? Hate to be blunt, but no, this one is just going to be shoved to the bottom of the pile and they're not going to touch it again. Thankfully, both of the original games are available over on GoG, so who knows, maybe if there's enough interest shown over there, that might change. As it is now though, I just don't think we'll be seeing Ms. Bow or her adventures again any time soon.

The Lost Vikings

First Game:  The Lost Vikings, 1993 (Developed by Silicon & Synapse and Originally Published by Interplay Productions)

Latest Game: The Lost Vikings 2, 1997 (Developed by Blizzard Entertainment and Originally Published by Interplay Productions)

Personal Thoughts: If anyone knows anything about Blizzard's early days, before the Warcrafts and Starcrafts and such, back when they were called Silicon and Synapse, they probably at least know the name of the Lost Vikings, one of the first puzzle platformers I ever played growing up. I never got very far into it when I was a wee lad, but damn was it fun. And while I knew it had a sequel, I was kind of surprised that we didn't see more of it later down the line. But nope, two games is all we get, and while this series has cropped back up in recent years, thrown into the Blizzard Arcade Collection… which is digital only and feels like it only exists to sort of remind people of some really obscure IP that Blizzard owns? It's strange.

Personal Hopes: This is one that I really hope would be coming back at one point or another. While multi-character puzzle games aren't really unique nowadays. Things like a Tale of Two Brothers, Toodee and Topdee, and of course multiplayer experiences in the same vein like It Takes Two, but I don't feel like it's a particularly oversaturated genre, and LV's take on it with three different characters, or even more given the other characters introduced in the second game, might even make it stick out. I think this is something that could have legs in the future, so I think it's something that could come back, though again, I don't see it being a very high profile production if it does return.

Overwatch

First Game: Overwatch, 2016 (Developed and Published by Blizzard Entertainment)

Latest Game: Overwatch 2, 2022 (Developed and Published by Blizzard Entertainment)

Personal Thoughts: I don't think I'll be adding much to the conversation on this one. I'm aware that Overwatch still has its fans, but from the perspective of someone who has watched Blizzard and Activision slowly piss away all of the good will and good press that the game got upon launch, I feel comfortable in saying that this is the first time I've ever watched someone take a diamond and just grind it into dust in front of my eyes. I don't think it's necessarily going anywhere for right now, but it just feels like Blizzard has been slowly removing all of the personality out of this game and this franchise. It bothers me because when the game first launch, it really felt like it set itself apart, and pretty much all of the characters were, at least from an aesthetic and personality point of view, interesting and unique. I can't comment on how the gameplay has changed since then since I never played the game, I'll leave that to someone who knows what they're talking about, but purely from the standpoint of how the game's image has been handled, even disregarding the company's overall behavior (and you really shouldn't disregard Blizzard's overall behavior), man did they screw this one up royal.

Personal Hopes: I'm begging you, just do something with a more coherent storyline. Make a more traditional shooter. Give folks what you initially promised for the sequel's story mode as something like a standalone game or something like that. These designs are too good to just waste away in a hero shooter that I've only heard people describe as aggressively mid since the sequel came out.

Phantasmagoria

First Game: Phantasmagoria, 1995 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Latest Game: Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Personal Thoughts: I know that a lot of older media tends to not age particularly well as our understanding of certain social stigmas and the history of other peoples in relation to ourselves comes to light as time marches on, but I thing Phantasmagoria and its sequel are two excellent examples of just how poorly a game's content can age. These FMV games were both made with the purposes of rocking the boat, being very dark and touching on subject matter that games nowadays really don't want to touch upon, especially from major AAA publishers. I haven't played these games in years now, well before I developed any sense of social grace for myself, which probably means I was too young to have been playing them in the first place, so I can't say just how poorly they've aged, but I do know that i think back to my own experience with the games and it makes me shudder a little bit.

Personal Hopes: It's an FMV game series from the 90's that does have some merit to the history of the genre, if only for the risks it took in its subject matter, but the fact that it hasn't aged well, FMV games are seen more as memetic throwbacks nowadays, and the fact that the subject matter the games were famous for probably wouldn't fly today. Horror games in their many different iterations are seeing a big resurgence in popularity and while games nowadays can push the envelope at least a bit in terms of their content, I don't think invoking an actually controversial PC game from the 90's would be something they'd want to do.

Pitfall

First Game: Pitfall!, 1982 (Developed and Published by Activision)

Latest Game: Pitfall! 2012 (Developed by The Blast Furnace)

Personal Thoughts: I had no idea this series… was actually a series. Pitfall to me has always just been one game, the original Atari game that helped to codify the platforming genre, but no, there were several games released, all the way up to the PS2 era, and then it just sort of drifted off into history, with the last game using the IP that I can find being an endless runner from 2012.

Personal Hopes: Again, I don't see this coming back in any sort of big way. While the endless runner is no longer available, the original Atari Pitfall is available on Android at least, but pitfall could maybe make a comeback as a Tomb Raider or Uncharted style game, but we already have Tomb Raider and Uncharted for that and Pitfall has more of a historical legacy than a big brand identity, so not much hope there.

Police Quest

First Game: Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel, 1987 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Latest Game:  SWAT Elite Troops, 2008 (Developed by Rovio Mobile, Originally Published by Vivendi Games Mobile)

Personal Thoughts: One of Sierra's classic adventure series that wasn't meant to be more on the comedic or fanciful side of things, Police Quest was well known for being a proper police procedural game; if you didn't follow the rules and proper protocol, you could end up bricking your game for something as simple as not showing your badge before you started questioning a suspect. It was wild, and a hell of a lot more involved than it ever had to be. I applaud the older games for their wish to stay as accurate as possible to the idea of being a cop, but I do feel that it makes the series kind of impenetrable to anyone who didn't grow up with it.

Personal Hopes: I don't think that this series would come back in any form mostly because the series is pure copaganda. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of that in video games and in media in general. Video games in particular have a real problem with fetishizing how awesome the American military is, for example. Now, if they brought it back and gave the series a seedier bent, I think it would be more interesting, maybe something more along the lines of This is The Police. However, I don't see it coming back in its original incarnation. I don't think stories where cops are portrayed as the out and out good guys resonate with a lot of folks of my generation and below, and while we do have examples of games where being organized and filing paperwork can be enjoyable (Papers Please, and Death and Taxes come to mind), I don't think a police procedural where missing even a single step in a lengthy process could kill a run hours beforehand is what folks are really looking for these days.

Prototype

First Game: Prototype, 2009 (Developed by Radical Entertainment)

Latest Game: Prototype 2, 2012 (Developed by Radical Entertainment)

Personal Thoughts: Edgy generic duology all about binary good and evil choices as well as some really well done animations and transformations and powers that you can attain as the game goes on, along with a free-roaming map hiding a bunch of secrets. There was an explosion of stuff like this at around the same time when the first game came out. The same year we had Assassin's Creed 2 and the original Infamous, so it simultaneously came out at the perfect time for a game of its type, and yet at the same time, I feel like it was always just sort of in the background and never really did much to stick out. I actually remember thinking for the longest time that this game was coming out of Ubisoft for some reason.

Personal Hopes: The second game, which came out 3 years after the first, apparently underperformed so badly that it was used as the justification to lay off a lot of the people at Radical, and turn it into an assistant studio for their large projects, primarily COD. It's one of those series that I see as a creation of its time, and I can see Microsoft showing some interest in the property given Xbox's perceived base. It's a shame that Radical Design wouldn't get another crack at it, since they're probably busy helping others with their own projects, and while I don't see it happening any time soon, I do think that this might be something that could see some sort of revival under a new regime. Maybe.

Quest for Glory

First Game: Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero, 1989 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Latest Game: Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire, 1998 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Personal Thoughts: This is the other big-name adventure series from Sierra, right up there with King's Quest, and while it didn't run quite as long, it has quite a big legacy, and is just as famous for it's many, many quirky death scenes, much like King's Quest, but often with a more personal bent to it with the ability to choose your class and customize your main character a little bit, with stats that can actually effect how you have to approach some of the puzzles, many of which have multiple ways of solving them to account for your stats, but it also allows for a certain level of creativity on the part of the player.

Personal Hopes: I do hope we see another one of these games in the future. We're inundated with a lot of games that have binary choices that affect the game superficially, but what I would love to see would be an adventure game more along what they did with the King's Quest revival, which did something similar, giving players multiple ways to complete a task depending on what sort of virtue you were going for. I think there's more fun to be had here, and while it's been a while since the King's Quest revamp, I think this would be a logical follow-up.

Singularity

First Game: Singularity, 2010 (Developed by Raven Software)

Latest Game: Yep, one game again. One could say that this particular IP is very… Singular?… where'd everyone go?

Personal Thoughts: It's a shooter for the PS3, during that horrid time where the brown and beige shooter kind of ruled the world, where because they could do pretty realistic, for the time, graphics, well, the real world isn't super colorful, so let's make our future-war, realistic world really boring to look at. Singularity, while its looks didn't really set it apart from a lot of the other military shooters that were out at the time, but it does at least have some mechanics that set it apart, with a sci-fi/horror bent to it that seems the main character hopping back and forth through different points in time. But even with that, I kind of see why this one didn't spawn a franchise. It sort of disappeared into the same sea that a lot of other shooters of the time sank into.

Personal Hopes: I think this does have a chance to come back. Shooters are still big business, but we aren't quite drowning in the genre as much as we were back during the PS3 and 360 era. And while we've seen these sorts of time manipulation mechanics before, a fresh start for the series, a shooter that keeps the ability to jump between time and place, that could work. It could be like Bioshock Infinite if the dimension hopping were an actual gameplay element instead of regulated to set pieces or story moments. The odds of it happening are slim, since the IP has languished for 14 years, but hey, there's a spark of an idea there.

Ski Resort Tycoon

First Game: Ski Resort Tycoon, 2000 (Developed by Cat Daddy Games)

Latest Game: Ski Resort Tycoon II, 2000 (Developed by Cat Daddy Games)

Personal Thoughts: The idea behind the Tycoon game has kind of fallen off in recent years. The idea of owning and operating a very specific business as sort of a faceless CEO who makes all the big decisions, fires and hires the people, and makes decisions about how your business operates. There are a ton of these now, from developers of various sizes, and of various levels of quality and seriousness. That is to say nothing of those tycoon games that have their own series in and of themselves. It's a bit of a mess, all things considered.

Personal Hopes: There are. So many. Tycoon games. Don't believe me? Go on steam and just search Tycoon and take a look at how many games pop up, and what sort of themes and businesses and ideas they use. Then think about something as basic as Ski Resort Tycoon being brought back. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but even with the backing of major names like Activision or Microsoft, I don't see it doing much, especially not when there are just… SO MANY alternatives to something like this, and I don't know if a Ski Resort sim would be able to stand up against them in terms of interest. Maybe something niche, but ‘niche’ is a bit of a dirty word in the AAA game industry.

Skylanders

First Game: Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, 2011 (Developed by Toys for Bob)

Latest Game: Skylanders: Ring of Heroes, 2018 (Developed by Com2Us)

Personal Thoughts: It's kind of hard to believe how hard Toys-to-Life has flopped in the last few years. Wasn't that long ago that it felt like everyone was trying to get in on this grift, and now we're at a point where no one's really doing it anymore beyond Nintendo, and the only real reason it feels like Nintendo's held onto it is because their characters are recognizable enough that people outside of the game sphere are interested in them… and they can be used across a bunch of different games. At least, some of them can. Point is, they aren't locked down to a single game or series the way that something like Disney Infinity or Starlink or Skylanders was. Skylanders was the first big one that I remember coming out, the first one to really sink its teeth into kids, and while the series basically never changed much from just being a series of basic beat-em-ups for children, they were decent enough for what they were, if a little on the slow side. Each new game tried its best to have a new gimmick with the toys to keep giving people a reason to keep investing in more plastic around the house. The problem was there was just too much plastic…

Personal Hopes: As far as games aimed at a younger audience, they weren't terrible, but there were a lot of them in a very short amount of time. From 2011 to 2018, with the exception of one year, there was at least one new Skylanders game a year, and with them, a deluge of new toys to grab. It flooded the market all on its own, even before competition started to appear. This isn't going to come back, at least not in its original form. It lived on as a mobile property for a while, which as much as I hate the mobile market, it does fit right in with. The multitude of characters and heroes makes it a natural fit for the Gacha style of a lot of those sorts of games, but as it originally was? No. It even attempted to branch out into other genres briefly with stuff like the racing game Super Chargers, and from what I recall, that did next to nothing. Skylanders, I think, is done, and Activision doesn't seem in a hurry to try exploiting kids again, at least not on the console market.

Soldier of Fortune

First Game: Soldier of Fortune, 2000 (Developed by Raven Software)

Latest Game: Soldier of Fortune: Payback, 2007 (Developed by Cauldron HQ)

Personal Thoughts: I'm not really sure what to say about this one. I didn't play it at all, though it was a series that started before the PS3 shooter flood, and I understand that it was pretty well liked for the fact that enemies would react differently depending on which area of the body they were shot in. It did well enough to get a couple of sequels, and a very short lived MMO FPS (only released in Korea), but apart from that, was there anything that set it apart from its contemporaries or the contemporaries of its sequels?

Personal Hopes: Again, I haven't played any of the SoF games, so please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but from the outside looking in, I'm not seeing anything that would really set this one apart from the shooters that we have today. And I'm not saying that ‘Call of Duty’ is a title that really stands out in a crowd, but ��Soldier of Fortune’ feels just as generalized and generic, but without the massive sales numbers to keep itself in the limelight. So I really don't think Microsoft would bother trying to pull this one out of obscurity.

Space Quest

First Game: Space Quest I, 1986 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Latest Game: Space Quest 6, 1995 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Personal Thoughts: This series was to science fiction what King's Quest was to fantasy, though I often feel like it somehow managed to be even more absurd than the series that was based around a fairy tale land where magic bridles could turn snakes into horses and sugar cubes could make you invincible. It was fantastic.

Personal Hopes: I would love to see a revival of the main series of this. And again, I feel like the King's Quest reboot would work for it. However, it should be noted that the original co-creators of this series have, after a long decade of development are allegedly close to releasing Spaceventure, a spiritual successor to the series. as it hasn't released publicly yet, I can't say whether or not it measures up to that moniker, and the fact that it took so long to develop doesn't help matters. While I'm always excited to see developers try and give us a well loved, long absent series successor, but I will always hope to see the series itself make a return as well. There is, in my mind, room for all these games to coexist, even if they only reach a niche audience. It's just a shame that Microsoft and Activision think differently.

Spyro

First Game: Spyro the Dragon, 1998 (Developed by Insomniac Games and Originally Published by Sony Computer Entertainment

Latest Game: Spyro Reignited Trilogy, 2018 (Developed by Toys for Bob)

Personal Thoughts: This one is pretty similiar to the Crash Bandicoot situation. Popular series, goes through a lot of hard times, ends up with Activision, they make a few cursory attempts to cash in, including using his name and likeness to help jumpstart the Skylanders franchise, but otherwise has allowed the series to remain dormant, until Crash Bandicoot's successful revival. A few years later, hey, Spyro gets the same treatment with the Reignited Trilogy, which does ‘well’ according to Activision in its launch window. And now… now he and a few of the other characters from his games are DLC for Crash Team Rumble.

Personal Hopes: This is another one that just makes me made. At least Crash got managed to get one brand new game out of the deal after his revival. Spyro? He got the revival treatment just in time for the studios that helped make it to get turned into CoD assistance studios and now for all we know, the series has once again gone dormant. You had a perfect setup to continue that train of success, and you blew it, ActiBlizz. Fuck you. Microsoft could, maybe do something with the series, like Crash, and I pray that they do, but considering their reluctance to do anything with other beloved kid-friendly characters they've acquired over the years (hello Banjo-Kazooie), all I can do right now is just hope.

Starcraft

First Game: Starcraft, 1998 (Developed and Originally Published by Blizzard Entertainment)

Latest Game: Starcraft: Remastered, 2017 (Developed and Published by Blizzard Entertainment)

Personal Thoughts: The sci-fi equivalent to Warcraft, and still a major beloved series for Blizzard, despite not really getting a truely new game since 2010. Starcraft II received a LOT of expansions from 2013-2016, and then we got a remaster of the original Starcraft the year after, but that's been it. And why would they need anything else new? Starcraft and its sequel is still played really often, it's doing just fine, to the point where Blizzard even did a good back in 2017 and made the original Starcraft (the non-remastered version), the Brood War expansion, and the vanilla version of Starcraft II completely free, if you download and play it from Blizzard's website over on Battle Net. And guess what? As of my writing this sentence, they are still available for free there! That's honestly nice to see.

Personal Hopes: I don't think that we have to worry about Starcraft going anywhere for a good long while, as its popularity as a competitive RTS game keeps legs underneath it, and ActiBlizz's willingness to keep a majority of the game free for people to play at their leisure (so long as they're playing using their proprietary launcher of course) has no doubt done a lot to keep the game fresh in people's consciousness. However, five years have gone by without any sort of new games or even new expansions for the existing games, and I worry that once people start to get tired of what they have (and they will, no game sticks around forever) that there won't be another new game on the horizon for the series. I don't think that's going to happen any time soon, but it is an inevitability that I think should be accounted for. I mean, they could always try to expand it out to other genres… might be a good time to revive Starcraft Ghosts, yeah? 

Tenchu (Kinda)

First Game: Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, 1998 (Developed by Acquire)

Latest Game: Tenchu: Shadow Assassins, 2008 (Developed by Acquire)

Personal Thoughts: I wasn't entirely sure if I should add this one because technically speaking, Actiblizz, and therefore Microsoft, don't own the Tenchu IP itself, instead, they only own the games that they publushed before they sold the rights to the IP to FromSoftware in 2004. So while they can't make new games, they do have the rights to a lot of the classic Tenchu library. But I don't think they're doing anything with the games that they actually own.

Personal Hopes: I just hope that they make the games that they have the rights to available to find. Throw them up on game pass or put them together in a collection or something along those lines. I did check all of the digital storefronts I could think of (Steam, Playstation Store, Xbox Game Pass, etc.) and I could not find a single Tenchu game, Activision-owned or otherwise, so at least for now, it seems like the entire series is basically locked to physical. If I'm mistaken there, I do apologize, but I genuinely could not find a legitimate place to purchase any of the games in the series digitally at this point in time.

TimeShift

First Game: TimeShift, 2007 (Developed by Saber Interactive and Originally Published by Vivendi Games)

Latest Game: Single game IP again. Lot more of these than I thought there would be, to be honest.

Personal Thoughts: This was another one that came around during that infamous PS3 and 360 glut of shooters all trying to vye for the top of the shooter stack. Considering that this was the only game in its IP, that didn't work out too well. Whatever information I've managed to find on the game suggest that it really did not have the best development cycle, changing publishers, and being delayed multiple times, eventually just dropping out of the news cycle entirely and missing a lot of hype because of that. And after all of that, the game only really managed to do ‘okay’ which is pretty unexceptional when it comes to AAA gaming.

Personal Hopes: I really don't know what to say here. Like other shooters I've highlighted in this list, I just don't think this will be something that comes back. The idea itself does have some legs, and without having to compete with a glut of other shooters, it might have some legs to stand on, but with Gears of War, Halo, and Call of Duty all under the same roof, TimeShift's chances of getting another roll of the dice doesn't seem very likely.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

First Game: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, 1999 (Developed by Neversoft)

Latest Game: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, 2020 (Developed by Vicarious Visions)

Personal Thoughts: The fact that the latest release of this series is also a remaster of the first two games kind of shows how much staying power the original formula has, as the series sort of got bogged down in itself as time went on, relying more and more on outlandish comedy and scenarios, or gimmicks like the plastic board controllers for Ride and Shred, the horrible online for Pro Skater 5, or even just getting off the skateboard and running around the environment in several of the later games. Going back to basics was probably one of the smarter things they could have done with the series, but…

Personal Hopes: Given Activision's track record when it comes to remaking or remastering classic or beloved titles, to much fanfare, and then just not capitalizing on that to reintroduce new entries in the series to a new generation, so while I'd love to see more classic style, smaller skating games. I know that the status of the Tony Hawk license name has been a bit in flux as of late, so a rebrand might potentially be in the works as well. Maybe.

True Crime

First Game: True Crime: Streets of LA, 2003 (Developed by Luxoflux)

Latest Game: True Crime: New York City, 2005 (Developed by Luxoflux)

Personal Thoughts: A duology of open world games where you play as law enforcement in the named city. They're pretty close in gameplay to the GTA games of the time, something that the first game actually got favorable comparison for. First game was mixed in reviews, but did financially well, second game wasn't so lucky. Other than that, the only cool thing I can find about the series is that the cancellation of a proposed third game taking place in Hong Kong led to the creation of Sleeping Dogs over at Square Enix.

Personal Hopes: If the failure of the second game wasn't enough to state that this series probably isn't coming back any time soon, there's the fact that we don't really see a lot of GTA-esque games anymore that aren't GTA. Saint's Row did attempt a comback recently and unfortunately that didn't pan out well. Doesn't seem like there's a huge amount of open world city games anymore. There's also the fact, and I'll admit, I don't know how much this would effect their ability to make a new True Crime game, but apparently Activision basically abandoned the trademark for the series. If that doesn't say that they aren't really interested in this series anymore, I don't know what does.

Ultimate Soccer Manager

First Game: Ultimate Soccer Manager, 1995 (Developed by Impressions Games and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Latest Game: Ultimate Soccer Manager '98, 1998 (Developed by Impressions Games and Originally Published by Sierra Online)

Personal Thoughts: I have absolutely no interest in sports games at the best of times, unless they have some sort of gimmick or are more arcade in nature. Closest thing to lrea life sports games I play are things like Mutant League Football or Mario Tennis. Even with my bias, I just don't think this will be coming back any time soon. First, this is a pretty niche idea. Sports fans like the fantasy of playing on their favorite team, or being able to put all their favorite players on one team, but it's a very specific group of people who wants to be more a part of the management side of things. Add to it, making sports games nowadays is difficult mostly due to the fact that Electronic Arts still holds a monopoly on most popular sports league licenses, and if you want a game to sell well, you either need to have the backing of an organization within the sport (NBA, NHL, FIFA, ETC), you need a well known character or franchise that can help draw in people who aren't necessarily sports fans (See the Mario sports games), or you have to have a really well executed gimmick that intrigues people to try out the game. As someone who doesn't travel in sports game circles, I unfortunately do not have a good example of this last one. Maybe the Pangya series? Even though that really is just anime golf… still fun though.

Personal Hopes: Even if this were a game that was aimed at me, I really don't think that it will be coming back because it's a topic that's very niche. Playing a sport in a video game has a certain amount of appeal to it that even folks that aren't necessarily fans of the sport can appreciate, but being hit with the management side of the sport, that is, I feel, much more niche, though admittedly it's a niche without a lot of competition. There's Sega Football Manager, but that's about it, and like… maybe you could branch out into other sports? Maybe? How have I put so many words into this particular game?

Warcraft/World of Warcraft

First Game: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, 1994 (Developed and Published by Blizzard Entertainment)

Latest Game: Warcraft Rumble, 2023 (Developed and Published by Blizzard Entertainment)

Personal Thoughts: You all know what Warcraft is, I hope. Out of anything that has Blizzard's name on it, Warcraft, or probably more accurately, World of Warcraft, is what most folk are going to think of when the company is brought up. WoW has fluctuated in both quality and popularity over the years, but it's always been near the top of the MMO pile, and is even still getting brand new updates and expansions about twenty years after its original launch. That's staying power. Or maybe stockholm syndrome depending on how you look at it. The original Warcraft series though, that hasn't been given nearly as much love as the MMO. Last year we did have that tower defense mobile game, Warcraft Rumble, and before that, there was the disastrous launch of the remake of Warcraft 3, but in terms of brand new RTS games, discounting the mobile games and the remake, there hasn't been a new Warcraft game as in a full PC/console game release since 2003. Hearthstone was a phenomenon for a time as well I suppose, but that's also sort of fallen off.

Personal Hopes: Look, WoW might not be quite as big as it once was, but it's still a very big, reliable money maker for the company, but when it comes to the main Warcraft games, I don't think we'll be seeing a new one of those beyond mobile games for a long while, especially with how poorly the whole remaster fiasco went over. I'd love to see the series go back to other genres that aren't just relegated to mobile games that may or may not be around a few years down the line, of course, as things stand, I don't see that happening any time soon, not while there isn't a reason to end the stagnation.

Zork

First Game: Zork, 1977 (Developed by Infocom and Originally Published by Personal Software)

Latest Game: Zork III, 1982 (Developed by Infocom and Originally Published by Personal Software)

Personal Thoughts: I have not played the Zork games. I know them more from cultural osmosis than anything else, and of course that's mostly just that one memetic line that continues to crop up every now and then. Zork was a series of three (or four?) text adventure games, back before even the most rudimentary of graphics was standard for games of this nature, and I think that lack of any sort of visual element to it is what really made it a special series. It was a weird and wonderful story that required a lot of imagination to make sense of what you were reading and seeing, and how best to react to whatever you're faced with. Of course, every text adventure is like this, but Zork's quirky and charming descriptions really helped to set it apart from everything. Again, I'm going off of what little I've seen of the games, as I've never experienced a full playthrough of them, but what I have seen is very fun and clever, if a little bonkers sounding out of context.

Personal Hopes: Zork is a pretty legendary series, but considering how long the IP has existed, and the fact that it perpetually has existed in this one singular for maybe suggests that no one really knows how to bring this series back. A text adventure on its own, no matter how well written and no matter what the attached IP is, I don't think would pull a lot of interest in a medium that's come to be so heavily defined by its visuals, save for a small niche audience. For an indie production, that would probably be enough to be satisfying, but not for a company as big as Activision or Microsoft. Zork is a nostalgia name, but not much else, and I don't see it losing that distinction any time soon.

Closing Thoughts

This was a lot longer than I thought it would be. Apparently I couldn't shut up about all this stuff. It was also incredibly sobering to go through as I realized, going through all of these games that the odds of a lot of them coming back in one form or another is pretty unlikely, even re-releases. 

I did my best to find as many IP that activision definitively own as possible, but I would not be surprised if I missed any, and I did make some exceptions like with Tenchu, which they only kind of own and can't actually make new games for. And yet, despite that, they're doing nothing with the games they do own, which is honestly just as annoying. Through my explorations of Actiblizz's back catalog (and there were plenty of places to look, considering that a lot of news sites were quick to put out lists outlining what Microsoft now owned), I did find a few that I wasn't entirely sure about and therefore did not include on this list. The two big ones that came up multiple times in my scouring were the Hexen and Heretic games. These two showed up on lists of IP microsoft gained in the Actiblizz acquisition, and yet when I looked up the series' myself, it seemed to suggest that they were currently owned and developed by Id software, which is currently owned by Bethesda, which is owned by Zenimax, which was gobbled up by Microsoft not long ago anyway. Either way, the games end up owned by Microsoft, so in the long run it doesn't matter, but I'm confused as to why these games kept coming up as something that Activision had ownership of when I couldn't find any conclusive information on whether or not they actually owned any of this.

While it was kind of depressing to see all these various IPs that are just laying dormant, I do have to remind myself that indie games have been picking up the slack. Despite this, one can't help but wonder what the added budget or manpower of a larger developer could do for classic series currently left out in the cold. I hold out hope for a few of these coming back at some point, but with the current corporate attitude of making nothing but absolutely massive blockbusters that have to sell millions of copies to be considered successes, and that are focus tested to hell and back to cast the widest possible net and get as many folks on board as possible, rather than taking a chance on a low-budget niche game… even though the risk would be low if the scope of the game was kept small and it was aimed at a specific audience, but hey who would want a more diverse portfolio made of more quickly produced smaller experiences that reach a smaller audience but overall would serve a wider demographic thanks to the variety?

Me.

I want that.

Do that, game industry.

And pay your fucking workers better.

#Activision #Blizzard #Everything that actiblizz owns #everything that microsoft now owns #Everything they're actually doing something with #My god #this took so long to put together #They own too much stuff they aren't doing anything with

[imnotrevealingmyname]

Games I've Played And Loved

Ok so I decided to make a masterpost of the games I liked the most out of all the mobile games I've played in the last few years. Most of these are available on Android, I don't know about iOS though. I will be adding PC games to this list soon.

These are mostly puzzle/adventure games, some are platformers. There are a couple of other genres as well. I'll rate each of them based on several criteria such as controls, plot, playability, and (in some cases, because this is by no means a criterion I usually select my games based on) graphics.

I hope you like these games as much as I have, and lmk what you think!

(This is not ranked in any order, I'm going to list all the good ones.)

Masterlist

(Updated on 24th June 2022)

•Gear Enigmas : Really well made puzzle game, looong and interesting plot. Love the world building. The puzzles range from really easy (almost disappointingly so at times) to a good kind of challenging. The second half needs to be purchased. I'm currently playing the second half and it's really good. If you pirate it, you can get the second half for free AND infinite free hints by going to the purchase section. 9.8/10.

•here : The main objective of this game is to find the word "here". It is brilliantly made with a minimalistic design but excellent concept and really good controls. Once you finish the game, there's an Easter egg too. 9/10.

•Dear Brother: September : Rusty Lake vibes, very short game (20-25 minutes gameplay max.) Kinda unsatisfactory and bewildering ending because it makes you solve a puzzle and get an item in your inventory but then the plot becomes very weird from there and that item turns out to be useless. I thought there were multiple endings so I replayed, but no luck. The game is apparently still in development so I hope they give it a proper ending. 8/10.

•Where's Samantha? : This is an absolutely gorgeous game, kinda similar to Oddmar. The narrators' voices are also VERY similar imo. The story is really intriguing too. HOWEVER, the gameplay is less than satisfactory. The clones glitch into the walls sometimes and no matter what you do you can't bring them back to you unless you start the level over, which is frustrating to say the least because the levels are HUGE. Also, the jump button is very inconsistent in its functioning while you're on moving platforms, so it's very, very irritating. It makes you slide off randomly too. Also, some parts are so damn difficult I nearly gave up on the game several times, which usually never happens with me. But I kept going, and for what? The game has a beautiful story with so many twists and turns and character development, but the ending is absolutely fucking horrible. It's abrupt and pointless and makes you feel that you spent over six hours from a very unsatisfactory ending. One good thing though, I got zero ads throughout. Overall it has the potential to be a 10/10 but unfortunately I'm gonna have to give it an 8/10.

•The Witch's Isle (by Cocosola) : Oh so you think Rusty Lake is good? Try playing this. Oh so you think the Rusty Lake storyline is an absolute mess? Try playing this. In all seriousness (I just finished the game, got the normal end second try) this is one of the most complicated and baffling games you'll come across. There are seven different endings, and I have absolutely no clue how to get the five I still have left. There's so much exploration you can do here, and the graphics are absolutely adorable. The puzzles aren't frustrating, just the right level of challenging. There's a timer of 1h 25min exactly, which is 5h 40min in game. Be prepared to get the bad ending on your first try, there's absolutely no fucking way you make it first try. The controls are remarkably good, although it's kinda hard to see stuff at times because it's a pseudo 3D game and the foreground doesn't become translucent when you move back a tier so it's hard to discern your surroundings at times. Pacing is really good, too. 10/10.

•Card Thief : This is a solitaire style game with a mediaeval castle twist. I absolutely love the concept. Very addictive game, though the limited treasure chest capacity may be slightly frustrating because it makes you watch an ad to open the chests quicker. It doesn't have ads otherwise, which makes for a relaxing gameplay with no distractions. 9.5/10.

•Dungeons of Dreadrock : This has an 80s RPG vibe to it, and I absolutely love it. The puzzles are challenging without being frustratingly difficult. It's very addictive, though each level is pretty short so that's good. The controls are unfortunately very bad, there are no joystick controls and you have to swipe to do anything and sometimes it doesn't register. 8/10 (but only because of the controls.)

•Nora's Dream : I could gush about this game for days on end. This is a GORGEOUS game in all aspects. It has a similar vibe to Tunic but without the fighting. I enjoyed every second of it. The controls were a bit irritating at times because you have to keep tapping on the squares you wanna go to, but that's not really an issue tbh. Some of the puzzles might be a little too much. 9.8/10.

•one night, hot springs : Very short and very sweet. (Transphobes DNI.) 30-45 minutes long at max, this is a sort of choose your own adventure game, but don't stress too much cuz it's just a very relaxing game. 10/10.

•Désiré : Ok, I'll admit, I haven't played the entire game because it's a very time-consuming game and when I started playing it I quickly realized I didn't have the energy to continue right then. BUT, it is definitely something that's on my to-do list in the upcoming months. From the little I did play, I can say that it's a very unique concept. Controls are slightly wonky at times but it does not affect the quality of the game or even playability all that much. I won't rate this yet until I've played all of it, but I can say for sure that it's a good game and totally worth it.

•Nekra Psaria : If you've played and liked the Rusty Lake games, you'll love this too. There is some gore-y stuff, so TW for that. Very weird game overall but in a very good way. The puzzles are really good. You'll have to buy the full version or you can find a mod somewhere online, your call (I've played the full version, it's SO GOOD.) Smooth controls, no issues with gameplay. 10/10.

•Obsolete : It's a puzzle 2D platformer. Nothing extraordinary, really, but it's a good game. Iirc the controls did cause some issues at times but it's worth playing. It does get a little boring after a certain point but it's good for when you wanna try something new that doesn't take too much energy. 7/10.

•Medulla : Another very unique game. The puzzles are very abstract, sort of in the way Rusty Lake puzzles are but more difficult in some ways. I haven't played the full version but it's definitely worth it. 8/10.

•Oddmar : *breathes in deeply* THIS. GAME. OH. MY. FUCK. This is till date possibly the best platformer I have played, and it's AWESOME. Well, except for the fact that they have Loki as the main villain :(. But other than that it's so, so good. Again, full version is paid, but you can find free mods online. 9/10 (would've given it a 10 but the whole thing with Loki being the villain...)

•Finding Idun : This game has Loki as the protagonist. Although they still try to vilify him in some ways, he's mostly just chaotic here. It's a pretty short game, but it's really fun and has some really good puzzles. 9.5/10.

•Dash : This game is ADDICTIVE, holy fuck. It's a really good action platformer. Very good controls, smooth gameplay, never gets boring. Sometimes it definitely crosses the line between good difficult and frustrating difficult, so that's kinda bad. Overall it's worth playing. 8.5/10.

•Kub : One of the best puzzle platformer games I've played. Very cute graphics, very fun overall. I skipped one level with an ad iirc because I couldn't get through it after two very frustrating days of trying, but other than that one level it's REALLY good. 9/10.

•Ella's Dimension: Good for some casual fun. Very relaxing, kinda addictive. It's worth playing, although you may get tired eventually. 8/10.

•her tears were my light : GAY. WOOLOOWOO. HEHSJJAHSHJDJDHHAJAJJA. Beautiful game with three different endings and it's the cutest shit ever. 10/10.

•Meridian 157: Prologue : I recommend this entire series. I played the prologue, the first part and a bit of the second part, and they're all REALLY good. The puzzles are challenging, but not too frustrating. Definitely recommend playing it. 8.5/10.

•The Mooseman : This is yet another gorgeous game. It draws inspiration from the myths and legends of Chud' tribes, and it's so good. The full version has to be purchased, and I haven't played it full unfortunately. The free version is still really good. 9.5/10.

•Liyla and the Shadows of War : Based on actual events that occurred in Palestine. It's a heart-wrenching game. TW for extreme violence. Really short game, 15-20 minutes max. I really recommend playing it. 9.8/10.

•Fern Flower : Very relaxing game, beautiful graphics. It's quite engaging, although it does get kinda repetitive after a while. Good for some casual fun. 7/10.

•Dawn, P.I. (Pocket edition) : Really good puzzles, very well executed. The pocket edition isn't too long, and I didn't play the full version, but if the full version is as good as this, then it's absolutely worth playing. 8.5/10.

•Cassel : Cute and engaging game, kinda meh at first but it gets better and more challenging after the first couple of levels. Again, good for some casual fun. 7/10.

•Boo! : Very cute puzzle game, the levels get progressively harder but not frustrating in the slightest. One issue, though: SO many ads. 8.5/10.

•The Frostrune : This has to be the winner of the lot, honestly. Absolutely no competition. You won't find a puzzle game that is better than this game. If you love Norse mythology and/or puzzle games, you will fall in love with this game. 100000000/10.

•Tiny Quest Jungle : One of the cutest puzzle games you'll find. It's not very long, takes under an hour to finish. You won't by disappointed by this game. 9.5/10.

•Tiny Quest Desert : Part 2 of Tiny Quest Jungle. This is a paid game, but the apk can be found online. Longer than the first game and just as good, if not even better. Absolutely recommend playing it. 10/10.

•Tiny Room Stories: Town Mystery : This is a huge game. I played it a while ago so I don't remember exactly how long, but I think around 5-7 hours. It's as interesting as it is long, and you'll have a great time with this game if you like puzzle games. The full version is paid, unfortunately, but there's a free apkmody.io mod of the game :). 9.8/10.

•NOX : This one has a sad ending, but it's really well made. Be prepared to use hints, though, some of the puzzles are all over the place since they're scattered over a HUGE map. The game mechanics are very similar to Tiny Room Stories, so if you liked that one you'll like this too. If you speedrun through it, it's possible to finish it in about an hour, but for first time players it's gonna take 2-3 hours. 9.8/10 (ads :') )

•Get Acc_e55 (by UnderAIR) : Another isometric puzzle game with similar game mechanics to NOX and Tiny Room. Sci-fi lovers will love this, it's got super cyberpunk vibes. Really good controls, no issues at all. The full version can be bought or you can watch ten ads on a little device on a shelf (it's right where you start the game.) Very challenging, but not frustrating at all. Possible to finish with no hints. 9.9/10 (cuz ads.)

•Tiny Robots Recharged : Very similar vibes to Get Acc_e55, although this one has levels. Super cute, though the puzzles are kinda easy (maybe they'll get harder, I've only played up to the second boss, so idk.) Definitely recommend playing. 9.5/10.

•Tricky Castle: Trap Adventure : If you like Kub, you'll love this too. Long game, probably around 10+ hours of gameplay, and it's worth every second. If you like puzzle platformers, this is the game for you. 10/10.

•IQ Dungeon : Very cute game, the puzzles are really cool though some of them are kinda unclear. Overall it's super fun, kinda like Tricky Castle in some ways. The last level is kinda squicky, personally. LOTS OF ADS. 8.5/10.

•Minimal Escape : I have a love-hate relationship with this game. As good as this game is, it is really, really frustrating sometimes, so I deleted it once and reinstalled a few months later. My game started glitching in one level and it wouldn't let me go through no matter what I did, and I tried restarting the entire level and it still glitched at the same place. This would've been fine but the levels are LONG. Each level is 15+minutes long so I got irritated and uninstalled it a second time. If you can handle that frustration with games, then you'll definitely like it. Even if you don't, you'll still probably like it, just be sure not to stress out too much. 8/10 (would've been lower but the game is actually really good.)

•Very Little Nightmares (by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe) : Very similar to Little Nightmares in terms of the puzzles, graphics and overall vibes. Puzzles are quite challenging, can get kinda frustrating sometimes but mostly pretty good. 9/10.

•Alto's Adventure : Oh. My. Goodness. If you hate endless runner games, this game right here is going to change your mind. Guaranteed. It's one of the most beautiful games you'll ever play, I promise you this. 12/10. Please do yourself a favour and play this.

•Alto's Odyssey : Part 2 of Alto's Adventure. Just as good as its precedent, if not even better. 12/10.

•Space Chase: Odyssey : This is also a gorgeous endless runner game. If you liked the Alto games you'll like this too. 10/10.

•That Level Again : Really good game. There are more games similar to this one in these series, but I haven't played those. I definitely recommend this one, though. 8.5/10.

•Within (by SilverLiningStudio) : It's a horror/puzzle game that won't let me share the link, for some reason. It's really good. Beautiful graphics, awesome music, really poignant game overall. 9.5/10.

•Apple Knight : This is a really good action platformer. Nowhere near as good as Oddmar but similar objective. You'll never get bored with this, that's for sure. 8.5/10.

•Knock-Knock : A horror/adventure game that you should play alone. It's surprising not repetitive at all and it's very addictive. It does glitch sometimes when you're on the ladder, and the ghosts attack you even when they're not around, then. 8.5/10.

•Heads Off : This is honestly just a really funny game. Not something you can play for a long time, but it's good for a laugh or two. 9/10.

•No Humanity : This is HARD. But so good. It's been a while since I played this so I don't remember much, but it's definitely really good. 8/10.

•Rusty Lake : You were probably waiting for me to mention this BRILLIANT series, if you're a puzzle game lover. This is an indie studio that makes some of the best puzzle games out there. If you're into puzzle games, you've probably heard of them already. All the games are connected and there are Easter eggs everywhere, including connections that you need to make to get certain achievements in a few games. The games range from 2 to 10+ hours long, and they're all so worth it. Some of them are paid, but as always, mods are always an option. Of course, some puzzles are very frustrating, but still so good. 10/10.

•Dark Dome : If you like Rusty Lake, you'll like this series too. Start from oldest and move on to the most recent, in the series. I ploughed through all five games in just over a day, that's how good this is. The members of this indie studio are masters of their craft, no kidding. There are Easter eggs here too, the games are all based in the same town so you'll see a lot of connections. 10/10.

•FM Studio : I've only played Forgotten Hill: Fall so far, but if the other games are anywhere near as good as this one, this is a brilliant series. There are a bunch of jumpscares tho and it's a horror-puzzle series, so keep that in mind. The gameplay is slightly wonky at times though, and some of the puzzles would be better if they were more challenging. That said, I absolutely recommend it. 9.5/10.

•BusColdApp : This is a studio that makes a LOT of really great escape room games. I've played several of these and half of my already played games list is filled by these games. Lots of ads though, unfortunately. Some of the puzzles are kinda meh. 9/10.

•EscapeFunHK : Idk if the devs of this are the same as the ones in BusColdApp, but these are are escape room games.

•HKAppBond : Same as the above two.

•HFG Entertainments : Same as the above three.

•Last Quarter Studios : This indie studio has made the Cats Are Liquid series, and both games are wonderful. Kinda sad, but very sweet. The second one is way better imo but if you wanna follow the storyline play them in order. Also, you can make your own levels and share them too, so that's pretty cool. 9.5/10.

BONUS:

Happymod is a mod app where you can get a lot of the paid games in this list (and more) for free. I've played most of the paid games here thanks to happymod. Just a heads up in case you wanna play them but are broke. :)

#inrmn.txt #inrmn plays games #mobile gaming #mobile game #game #gaming #puzzle game #puzzle games #escape room #escape room games #puzzle platformer #platformer game #platformer #cube escape #rusty lake #knock knock horror game #knock knock game #d #dark dome

[matty-m]

Collection of Fun Little Things i found out while running Monster Roadtrip through Asset Studio (Part 1?)

Almost all road elements are separate, the only exception being the foliage. But roads, the floor itself, the rock formations and even the landmarks are fully independant!!!

there are also "Invisible" Sprites of Scott and Polly(for some reason)

Hazel is called Cinnamon in the image files, while Zoe, Juan and Glitch are all classified by name, so we can with full confidence say they were either the last addition to the DLC 4, or it was particularly later in development when they changed them into a moth person

Every Goddamn sprite in this game has two versions! a Sprite one and a Texture2D one.

See how the second one (Texture2D version of the picture) has all that info abt it. the Sprite version is probably for when you get the picture during gameplay, and the Texture2D version is what you see in the Gallery, but that's just a guess.(i would also like to point out the Texture2D versions all have negative PathIDs, i just didn't know where to put it)

Last, but not least,

Vicky's stockins in this scene, and i'm gonna need you to hear me out on this one,

MIGHT BE a Danganronpa reference.

and i'm so glad it's not making a bit

They could be based off of Ibuki Mioda's since it's the same colors, and Ibuki very much is a rocker girl, even if the rest of the outfit doesn't really match with Vicky's. let a girl dream can you.

This'll be all i say for now, but i'd love to look more into it, if it doesn't take 3 hours and 13 different instances of my pc almost crashing to load this stuff byeeeee~

M.

#monster prom #asset rip #monster roadtrip #matty m rambles again

[ferdydurke]

Could you write something about your dnd character/s? Love hearing about other people's ocs!

hehe i finally have a moment to answer >:3c this is gonna be long so im gonna get a read more involved

my only character thats actually from dnd (my online group plays other ttrpgs) and "active" (we played two sessions 3 months ago ;w; but! might play again) Is Yeshe :3

Its a mdzs inspired campaign... im pretty sure, i havent watched it... so i based her off of tibetan folk clothes and ofc off of a pallas cat. She hadnt had time to shine as a character yet and her backstory and motivations are bit murky =w= but the gist is that she takes care of her magically gifted little sibling (another player character, my sketch attached), they were raised in a remote commune and are now going to the big city.

Now, the character from a finished campaign of City Of Mist (really cool system!!!) thats been on my mind a lot recently is my beloved Theooooooo

He was originally an oc completely detached from any specific setting, then I put him with my beloved Rochelle (in the blue dress, she started out as a dnd character but got only like 2 sessions back in 2020 :'3) in my own version of feywild (ill get to it later).

And then!!! I decided to play him in that CoM game and it was the best decision everrrrrrrrrr he was so so so so sos ososoosososos fun :3. CoM is urban fantasy where people become "rifts" for mythical beings and are able to use their power.

Theo was a Detective and a Fey and i really enjoyed playing an absolutely devious, controlling and charming guy =w=. His main motivation was power, he thought most people (except for his wife rochelle altough they have a tomshiv thing going on) are beneath him and mostly there for him to order around like chess pieces. And something that made this campaign insanely fun for me was that in order to get more powerful he had to do a task for the fey queen - kidnap and deliver a singer to her. A singer which also happened to be the person we had to protect during our investigation... dm and me kept it secret.

It was so insanely fun to walk into every scene thinking of how to find an opportunity to do that... in the end I managed to, in a very tense scene (the greyscale sketch at the top, the girl smiling behind theo is one of the fey messangers). The other PCs didnt stop him because they had some trust in him... got away with it completely :3. Tho I agreed not to play him in the next campaign (even tho id love to >_<) bc his jig was kinda up. Great character tho, and thanks to my dm i finally get warlocks, i might play one sometime!

Now, still in the city of mist im playing Valerie :3

Her mythos is "Vampire" but she refuses to drink blood... she gets all sorts of issues bc of that, has trouble keeping down frineds and jobs ect... Still very early in the campaign but shes pretty fun :3 tho i prefer chracters who are a bit more commanding, i made her more of a follower to let my group breathe after theo but i kinda naturally fell back into organising the party again last session so i think i just need to stick to making charismatic characters next time sidugfsd. shes a nice change of pace tho, im excited for whats in store for her.

My feywild!!! It's a setting ive had in my head ever since i made Rochelle, Its sort of an early modern france mixed with Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell which sounds pretty lame and ig it is isudgfsd.

Theres a lot of ideas and a lot of characters that i dont really have time to develop and am prolly gonna rework a million times =w= but its fun, and its fun to make plalists for random archfey.

Last character I'll mention =w= even tho i never got to play him because the campaign fell apart before the fist session, as they often do, I really love Byk and I wanna show you guys...

Tadeusz Byk born in 1880 in Poland, Emigrated to the usa (boston then moved near new york) with his mother and grandma when he was 13... Operates a temporary house for immigrants that his mother started. Now 40, works as a tailor and sells moonshine on the side. Depressed, repressed and with a big heart... hope i get to dust him off for something someday...

#barking #ask #I bet this is very unpleasant to read forgive me ive dyslexia and had to write it without autocorrect #if you guys are curious about any of em feel free to ask ^_^ also i have a million more ttrpg ocs so if you wanna see some more lemme know #i tried to stick to some relevant to dnd ones sdugsd #except for byk i just know you guys like old man yaoi #he got that hat from a childhood friend he had a thing for... all very tragic

[everygame]

Battle City (NES)

Developed/Published by: Namco Released: 9/9/1985 Completed: 20/11/2022 Completion: Beat all 35 unique levels. Version Played: Switch Online Trophies / Achievements: n/a

[Apologies for interrupting, but before we get to the article I’d like to mention that you can pre-order a copy of exp. 2600, my brand new zine, right now and get more of–and help support–writing like what you’re about to read.]

There are iconic NES games–Super Mario Bros. and that. And then there are iconic NES pirate cart games. Battle City is the latter. 

I have a funny history with NES piracy, actually. As most people know, the NES wasn’t really a thing in the UK for most people (I certainly didn’t know anyone with one as a child) and by the time I reached the age where my family were spending more time in Malaysia, I was already an avowed PC gamer. So even though I have so many memories of department stores with rows of pirate carts and knock off Famicoms… I wasn’t interested at all, and instead filled my boots with copied floppies (seeking out the stalls with the best reproductions of manuals and that sort of thing.)

In some respects, I regret this–so much of the video game culture of South East Asia in the 90s seems to be lost forever (see tweets) and now all I really have is snatches of memories–usually a gaggle of kids crowded round a pirate cart version of Street Fighter II in a Jaya Jusco–but I also know that games like Battle City squandered the chance to get me lugging a Malaysian famiclone home with a couple of 150-in-1 carts.

Let’s remember here I’m not yet a teenager and I’ve just discovered the glory of things like Wolfenstein 3D’s vibrant ultraviolence and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis’ cinematic narrative. And while in Malaysia I’m putting the exchange-rate equivalent of pennies into big fancy sit down/ride cabinets of the likes of Suzuka 8 Hours or Rad Mobile. So when an uncle digs out a faimclone and a pirate cart and you boot it up to find you can play 30 versions of the dustiest-ass tank game for babies you’d ever seen…

(And what was the deal with every single pirate cart massively over-inflating the number of games anyway? Was anyone fooled when they selected “Fancy Excitebike” in the list and just got Excitebike again??? I have one of those snatches of memory of standing in a wee store with my dad, him saying “you can get another game for the house!” and me, unable to tell which cart offered any value at all–after all, 80 of the games would probably be the same ones on the cart we already had–going home empty handed! Empty handed! When do kids ever do that???)

Anyway. When I think of pirate carts, I think of Battle City. Maybe it isn’t iconic to everyone, maybe it’s only iconic to me because it was on the cart I had for one summer at least… but it’s such a pirate cart game that it almost feels weird to play it in an “official” way.

And I suppose, this many years later, it’s kind of weird that I put a bunch of time into it?

I’ll say this. It’s not surprising that at the time I gave it short shrift. It’s got horrible sound (a constant buzzing of engines) and feels extremely simplistic and limiting as you awkwardly move your tank around sans diagonals. It was, after all, based on a game from 1980 with a bit of a graphical touch-up–contemporary with the timeless Pac-Man, sure, but this ain’t Pac-Man. I’ll admit the tank movement feels better than I remember it (smooth, and perfect speed) but the game sort of doesn’t really feel like anything.

Look at it this way. The game has you as a tank trying to defend one poorly walled-in base, always at the bottom center of the screen, from being shot by enemy tanks. There’s some terrain, but it’s mostly brick walls that can be shot through. Enemies spawn from the same three spawn points at the top of the level, and there’s some variation between them (some fast tanks, some tanks that take a bunch of hits). None of the enemies have any real AI–they don’t seek you, or really seek the base, either. Sometimes there are power-ups; you can improve your gun to destroy steel walls; there’s an occasional smart bomb or time-stop which are must-grabs. Shoot 20 tanks to get to the next level.

It’s, you know… fine. It’s an alright game design. But when you actually sit down and play it, the game very quickly devolves into getting your tank as far up the screen as you can manage where you are able to shoot clearly to both the left and right boundaries without being shot from a tank spawning above, and then just… firing constantly left or right based on which side tanks are traveling down from most urgently.

There are a few levels where this is not simple to do (a total bastard of a level mostly with tree coverage, making tanks near-impossible to see) and you can’t consider this tactic a total slam dunk because if a tank does slip past, they’ll often destroy your base before you can get to them, leading to an instant game over (no matter how many lives you have!) which can be infuriating. But it’s not like there’s better tactics; on a level by level basis you’ll do your best to shoot your enemies straight paths to your base, so you kind of just have to accept the variance.

In the cold light of 2022, Battle City is… a half-hour or so of near-mindless blasting that you wish had any sort of twist, or spark, or even particularly interesting level design, to make it a charming bit of classic arcade action worth score attacking.

In the early 90s it’s a dusty-ass tank game for babies that is indirectly responsible for the total lack of preservation of south-east Asian game culture history. Probably.

Will I ever play it again? Nope but I’ve got 1991’s Tank Force waiting to be played which is a baffling (and obscure) sequel that’s maybe brilliant. I mean who knows.

Final Thought: One of the most annoying things about Battle City of course is when you’re shot from the side by a tank that’s turned on a dime before you could notice, and I have to admit I’d be interested to play this exact game but with real, slow-ass tank turning. Would it be better? Would it actually be even more annoying? I’m kind of imagining these situations where you watch your tank turn, watching another tank turn, thinking “oh god, I hope I get this shot off” like you’re actually in the tank, feeling it slowly spin around… [“That’s why tanks have turrets though. So they can shoot in different directions more quickly”--Ed.] Shut up!

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#video games #games #gaming #battle city #nes #famicom #pirate cart #switch online #text #txt #review #namco #namcot

[m34gs]

Tell us about your top five favourite video games! ❤️

Oh thank you so much for this ask, friend! I'm super excited to answer :D I will list them from fifth to first!

5th: This spot goes to Mario Party 8! I have a lot of fond memories of this game. Where I grew up, it was a very popular one for families to have for the Wii, and it was something we could play in large groups. It's silly and funny and there's not a lot you have to do to understand what's going on. The reason this isn't higher on my list is just simply because, in my opinion, it's only really fun when you play with others. Playing alone or just vs the computer is not really fun at all.

4th: Sims 4 is in fourth place. I really enjoy this game because it's pretty versatile in terms of how you can play it. You can use it simply to build homes (which is mostly what I'm doing right now; building and decorating is so much fun!), play out storylines that come with the base game and/or expansion packs (apparently there's quite a bit of actual lore, which is something I only learned a few months ago!) or even make your own crazy story-lines (currently: I have a family of vampires with one human member who desperately wants to be turned, an Elder vampire who just wants to raise a good vampire family, a young adult vampire who thrives being a vampire and is trying to seduce Vladislaus Straud, and a third young adult vampire who is desperate to be as human as possible and loves all things about humanity...and then I have another "family" where one woman was jealous of another's beauty so she tricked her into staying in a tower and I'm currently playing through as her, only able to befriend the people her captor invites over, and trying to convince one of them to "join" the family so she can get them to free her and run away with her and start a new family in a cozy magic cottage somewhere...). Possibilities are really endless, and that's what I love about it. But, the game is rough on my PC, and it sometimes lags or has issues where it doesn't load properly, or something doesn't register right, so sometimes I have to exit out and restart or try again a different day. It also can't seem to decide if it wants me to use keyboard controls or mouse controls. Some days right clicking rotates objects. Some days right clicking moves my screen. It is a Frustration.

3rd: Third place goes to Danganronpa! I really enjoy this series. As of now, I have played the first two games and part of Ultra Despair Girls. The mysteries are very fun, the storyline is interesting, and I think all the character designs are so unique and dynamic! I have a few favourite characters who won my heart fairly instantly, and I really love replaying chapters where they are more present in the story-line. I love all the art fandom has made for it, and I love the fanfics too! Free time events give more information and insight about the characters and the storyline even after the gameplay is finished, and that makes me really happy. After all, I am a sucker for character development and backstory.

2nd: Skyrim is in second place!! I used to play this game a bit more faithfully when I lived with my parents and had access to my brother's xbox. And a tv. I do not currently have a tv, as you know, friend, and I do all my gaming at the current time on my laptop and/or my phone. Anyway; Skyrim. It makes me really really happy. I love the fact that I can become a Vampire Lord, or a Werewolf, I can be the Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold, I can learn to be a bard, I can join the Theives' Guild, I can join the Dark Brotherhood, I choose which side I'm on in a civil war, I can adopt children, and have many houses...and those are all Side Quests (except the civil war, which can be done as a side quest or as part of the main story depending on how you play, if I recall correctly). Like, those aren't even the main quest. I never finished the main quest because I was too busy off doing side quests for rewards so I could buy pretty clothes and fun toys for my two children and then I would spend time with them and play tag and hide and seek like a good dad (I played as a male Dunmer). I genuinely miss this game, and trust me it will be the first one I purchase when I have a TV and Xbox of my own.

1st: First place goes to....Twisted Wonderland! Right now, that is the game I play the most, and it is the one I'm most focused on. I love the story and the characters. There's an interesting plot going on, and I am eager to know what happens next. The events and side stories are very entertaining (though I haven't been able to play as many events as I would've liked because I had a rough past year) and provide a deeper look at a lot of characters! I love Character Development!!!!!!! And I enjoy how different characters end up interacting with each other in the events, it fleshes out the world a bit and keeps the houses/dorms from feeling too divided or closed off. Like, it helps provide that sense of over-arching storytelling, rather than allowing each dorm's story to feel disjointed and not connected to the others. I really enjoy that. On top of all of that, there are fun rhythm games and minigames, battles you can fight daily, and other little cool features that I really enjoy and that allow me to "play" the game daily without feeling like I have to devote a whole bunch of time to it if I have a busier day ahead of me. I also really love the official art; it's all so pretty and wonderful. They really did a great job with the character art and the art for the different cards.

Thanks again for the ask, friend! It was fun to answer!

#kimium #friends #asks #video games #video games list #top five favourite video games #subjective list #my opinion #mario party 8 #Sims 4 #Danganronpa #Skyrim #Twisted Wonderland